Life Lessons

It’s funny, I didn’t care what “stuff” I was losing, I was sick about my two cats caught inside with nowhere to go. The fire department came and put the fire out before it could get beyond the kitchen. The only other damage was that EVERYTHING in the house was covered with soot.

It took about an hour for the cats to come out from wherever they had found to hide.

One of the firemen told me that they would have to turn all the power off and I would need to stay somewhere else. They told me that I should go in and get any valuables because people in the neighborhood would know the house was empty and might try to break in. I asked if the cats would be safe in the house, with all that soot. They told me they would be fine. I went upstairs to my jewelry box and grabbed all of the “good jewelry”, not paying attention to what was actually in that grab.

The next day I went to work as usual because there really wasn’t anything I could do until the insurance came the next day. After work I went to the house to give the cats fresh water and food.

When I got to the house I checked my mail and found a note from my mailman. It said that I could let him know where I was staying and he would forward any mail. That confused me because I couldn’t imagine how he would even know I wasn’t there, the fire had not affected the outside of the house. I then looked up from the mail to see yellow caution tape all around the house! That had not been there yesterday??? I pulled up a little further and saw through the trees that my house was completely destroyed! The outside structure was there but the inside was pretty much gone. … the roof in the living room was lying on the floor. I couldn’t believe it. I found out later that the fire had re-ignited during the night, 12 hours after the original fire!

Needless to say, I about lost it…but, shock took over and I started calling people. I called Denise, the girl I was staying with, and she and her husband, Bill, got there in about 15 minutes. She called Kent Hawkins, one of the pastors from the church and friends, Linda and Margaret. The first thing Denise did was go into the house to see if she could find my cats. They were in the downstairs bedroom, one on the bed, the other on the floor….not burnt because the fire had gone up and not down to that room. When she came back out to tell me that she had found them dead I completely lost it. I couldn’t stop crying! Imagine, being an animal, completely helpless to save yourself and see a fire coming your way! Denise sent me off with Linda and Margaret while she, Bill and Pastor Kent buried my babies. (Friends….) All that night I was tortured by the thoughts of my cats watching a fire come and being unable to escape….I cried all night long!

The next morning I was talking to the Lord and told him I just needed to know that the cats had not suffered…my next thought was, “now how in the world would he ever let me know that?!” But, as soon as that thought came, the next was. “They were in the one room that didn’t burn…they were on the bed and floor. If they would have known there was a fire they would have been in hiding like the first fire. They were downstairs asleep and just didn’t wake up.” That was the first of several times I KNEW GOD WAS TALKING TO ME that week… I was HEARING GOD SPEAK in my spirit!!!