My sweet Chloe paused throughout the day to ask more questions about the 19 firefighters who died trying to protect a small town from devastation.
“Mommy, were they Daddies?”
When it’s so dry that it rains more ash and smoke than moisture it can be hard to breathe, and harder to make a child understand the things that come in tragic waves. Small children feel it like a shadow monster breathing on their neck.
“Do the Mommies have to be firefighters now?”
“No, Sweetie, they don’t, but they do need lots of prayer.”
The wind is indecisive and many dangers come with it, scattering unexpected weapons this way and that. The trees can’t rest from the pelting of it.
The wind brings rumors that the Westboro Baptist Church is on its way to spread more fire to our parched community. These church members are the ones who misrepresent all who follow Him. They pelt the living with lies and signs that hate until many are deceived into thinking that the name, Christian, means bible-thumping, close-minded terror.
They draw attention away from the truth.
People who drench the world with ash and smoke in His name are not the real deal. It may look like rain, be represented as rain, but it’s only the nasty stuff that gets stuck in your face and forced down your lungs. The real stuff may not always happen when we want it to but when it comes to drench a parched land, nothing is better or truer or more needed.
What God does is extraordinary love. He lays down His life for those who would love Him and then, with each generation, He raises up heroes.
Heroes who face monsters so others don’t have to. Heroes who walk into waves of fire to protect friends and strangers, mommas, daddies, and little ones from living nightmares.
The sky is bright – burning skin and trying to chase us into the shade. We stand to welcome home the heroes 19.
“Why don’t they just hold them so we can see them, Mommy? Why do they have to be in cars with policemen around them?”
She doesn’t remember it’s miserable hot. This is my little one – my verdant Chloe who doesn’t stop asking questions until she understands. Her desire to get it makes me all kinds of proud.
” Do you remember how the Bible says:
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13)
-These men did that and more. They gave their lives for friends and for people they didn’t even know.”
Her eyes widen to take it in and she stands in red-cheeked silence to honor them with all she has.
She hears the truth of it, as much as a 5-year-old can.
In all of the world’s brokenness, there still walks men who would die so that Greater Love can heal it.
To donate to the families of firefighters click on the link below.
sherryrossman 