The Joy of Sweet Innocence

Yesterday afternoon (Monday), the apartment building where My First Wife and I live caught on fire. (Twelve apartments.) Let me tell you something: there are only a few things worse on a family than to lose its home and possessions to fire. We know—it happened to us. And five years later, the pain of it still flares up.

My First Wife was home alone and went out to see what all the noisy commotion was about. Police officers, already there, didn’t allow her back in the building. So she prayed. Then firefighters arrived to hose down the two units on the end of our building. They were damaged pretty badly. By the time I got there after work, the fire crews were done and packing up.

Our next door neighbors complained that their apartment smelled of smoke, which is an awful odor. Otherwise, they’re okay and all their belongings are intact. They went out to dinner and left all their windows open.

But our apartment was not affected in any way. As a matter of fact, My First Wife overheard the fire chief say, “It’s interesting how this didn’t go any further than these two units.”

My First Wife prayed, remember? Now we’re praying for the uninsured families whose homes were ruined.

There’s always a message from the Lord. We talked with a lady whose apartment was burned. Her tiny 2 1/2 year old granddaughter held her hand. My First Wife and I had never met either one of them so we tried to be encouraging to her. When our conversation ended, we all said, “Bye.” Her little granddaughter sang, “Bye-bye. I love you.”