Fire

The fire right above my room- it doubled in size every 30 seconds.

A pile of things they "salvaged" from my room. Anything that wasn't
burned was so damaged by water and ashes that it had to be thrown out.

My water-logged and unreadable journals.


Today, August 4th, is the one year anniversary of my apartment being struck by lightning. It seems so long ago that I can hardly believe it has only been one year. There is A LOT that I don't remember from those first few months after the fire- it all got lost in headaches and insurance paperwork and replacing items. Still, I'm thankful for that lightning bolt. My time with the Lord during those months was so raw and real. He had wounded me, but He wanted to heal me. The very hardest thing to lose was my journals. I had faithfully journaled since 7th grade and in one strike of lightning they all disappeared. But the Lord is faithful. If you depend on one way of communicating with Him, He will inevitably long to teach you a new way. This past year I have learned the great value of praying outloud with other people. In a way it is similar to journaling because you are forced to put words to your thoughts, but where it is greater is that it builds community and fellowship and sometimes even accountability. That is just one example of how the Lord used the fire to take away something "good" that I was clinging to, to give me something more of Himself. During that time I took A LOT of comfort in these verses:

Hosea 6:1
"Come, let us return to the LORD.
He has torn us to pieces
but he will heal us;
he has injured us
but he will bind up our wounds."

Philippians 3:7-9
"But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him."

This is the email that I sent out four days after the fire to let everyone know how I was doing. It's amazing for me to read it and realize how true those words turned out to be. There was much anger and tears, but there was much dependence and blessing.


My friends,
I first of all want to apologize for not returning ims and phone
calls as quickly as I would have wanted to. Please know that amidst
the overwhelming paperwork and scurrying around newport news looking
for places to live, each and every phone call has slowed me down for a
minute to just warm my heart with a smile. So thank you for that
precious gift. This email is my lousy attempt to let all of you know
as soon as possible that I am fine; in fact, in surprisingly high
spirits. Yesterday was a big day for me, I had to go to the freeman
center to look through all of the "salvageable" items that the fire
company had boxed up. I was of course, expecting nothing, but Donna
surprised me with 8 boxes and 5 bags full of my things! It was like
Christmas! God just put a tickle in my heart and I was able to be so
overjoyed about the littlest things which I know was such a blessing
to Donna who had worked with grumpy, angry students all day. In the
end I had to throw everything away because it was so badly damaged by
the ashes, water, and fire. But God just gave me this perspective
that it wasn't a loss at all, it was a means for Him to humble me and
bless me. There were three items of significance to me that were very
minimally damaged and that I was able to keep... my gold and diamond
necklace from my Mom, my beautiful green formal dress (it was
untouched because it had a bag around it and was in the back end of
the closet!), and a Lenox mug that a friend gave to me (it was in the
dishwasher so it was safe).

I was reminded this weekend of the song "Indescribable" by Chris
Tomlin. The song has long been used to draw me deeper into the
knowledge and worship of God's strength and power. However, it spoke
to me this time of His Sovereignty. The line that says "who has told
every lightning bolt where it should go?" just silences me. His love
for me is so real that He would send lightning to cause me to push
deeper into His arms. We ask God all the time to "burn the Kingdoms I
have made" and I'm here to tell you that as scared as we get of
letting God do that, there is nothing that has made me more free. He
gets to teach me now to just relax in His goodness and total control.
Of course there will be (and has been) tears and anger along the way,
but I just wanted to share with you those quick stories of how He has
been showing up, speaking Truth and just allowing my heart to trust
Him with everything (ha, cuz everything is not a whole lot, maybe He
figured He'd start small :0P).

In the meantime, everyone keeps asking what I need, and really I
haven't known what to say to that because there's just so much. But I
thought of something today. PRAYERS. I really need specific prayer
in two areas right now. One, that God would give me the grace to
accept as people come running in to help, and to ask when I need more
help. It is so hard for me to let other people buy things for me or
hand me money. I've somehow acquired this awesome skill
of "independence" and worry often about burdening others. But right
now I need to "burden" others because they are all that I have. So
please pray that my heart would soften to allow others to be taking
care of me. Second, that God would ordain rooming situations. I have
decided that the cheapest option for me is to stay in the hotel with
hopes that I will be moved back on campus eventually. However, living
in Madison has made me accustomed to privacy and "my own space" so
pray that either God would transform that desire in me, or that He
would bless it by giving me a good roommate. I'm excited to see what
this year holds, especially as God reveals to me more and more about
what He's been up to with me this summer, but I know that I am me and
the little worries will start to try to creep back so please just pray
against those.

If you want to do more than pray, you can always write to me and
tell me that you are praying for me (insert big cheesy smile here) I
*used to* save all my love letters, but they are all gone now, so feel
free to replenish the stack! Just please make sure you don't send me
firey red cards, or gift certificates for anything BBQ... I've had
about enough crispyness for now! :0P

His,
Lindsay

"Because of the Lord's GREAT LOVE we are not consumed, for His
compassions NEVER fail."
Lamentations 3:22