One Year Ago (a time capsule)

Blogging today from the Aurora Public Library in Aurora, MN I find myself among the "masses" who patiently wait in line for a public use computer. Our laptop's power cord bit the dust last week and the new one won't arrive until Wednesday.

I find myself reminiscing a little bit about the event that took place one year ago tonight and thinking about how much our lives have have changed over the course of this last year. We were on our way home from a fun yet relaxing week of camp in northeast Wisconsin and had stopped to spend a night with Denielle's family on the way back to South Dakota. I had just doused myself with bug spray and was foolishly attempting to brave the mosquitoes and do a little bit of reading out doors. If I remember right, it was 9 PM Central daylight time.

Denielle's mom hollored at me through the window as I sat there slapping away that Peter (my brother) called and there is a fire. My first reaction was that I probably wasn't much, fires had become nothing if not common place in the black hills over the last four years. The second thing I thought of was just how dry it had been when we left the week before, as we drove away from the house we commented to each other about how we should have packed our 'fire safe' and hope chest just in case something happened.

What started as a lighting strike, took one life, injured two firefighters and quickly consumed over thirty homes along the Alabaugh Canyon some 5 miles south of Hot Springs, SD. The home we were renting was just one among many.

Still we had lived there as a married couple for nearly two years. I had lived in that house longer than I lived in any house in my life- five years. Everytime we return to Hot Springs we make time to visit the hold home site. (I would have pictures of then and now for you today but sadly, the appropriate computer is down at this time.)

But really, these details are nothing compared to the bigger picture of what God has done with this event in our lives. The verses that became very real to me in the days and weeks following continue to be a blessing as we look to the future. 2 Corinthians 4:16 and following: "Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."

So, what if? What if the lightening hadn't struck? What if the house had been able to be successfully defended? What if we had been there and been able to get a few more things together?

What are these questions? Vestiges of human emotion still clinging to the temporal? Yes for if we had not known this trial, we would not know the immesurable provision of God through His people. We would not know the faithful goodness of God to answer our specific prayers. The list goes on . . .

It seems my alloted time at this library computer has expired and I am needing to share it with the next on the list.

to be continued . . .
Jon