Coming Home: Gratitude, Guilt, and Grace After the Fire

This is the final installment of Through the Fire: Our Modrite Wildfire Story. If you’re just joining me, you can begin with Episode 1.

Here’s the rest of the story…

After everything we’d watched, everything we’d packed, and everything we’d feared, we still had a home to come back to. Praise the Lord!

I thought about the prayer I’d whispered from our roof as the Modrite Fire headed toward us.

“God, save our place.”

And then the prayer I’d whispered while driving away. “God, help us all.”

Standing there, I was overwhelmed with gratitude.

But one of the first things that caught my attention wasn’t a building. It was something much smaller. The flowers. Sunflowers. Zinnias. All the wildflowers my grandkids helped me plant from seed. There they were.

After seeing so much blackened and burned land, those flowers stopped me.

They were such an ordinary thing. Before the fire, I might have walked past them without giving them much thought. Now they meant something different.

Life was still here.

They’d reminded me that God had heard my prayers.

The fire had come frighteningly close. But these delicate little blooms remained. I couldn’t stop looking at them.

Then came the guilt.

Survivor’s guilt.

Our home stood. Others didn’t. We still had our belongings. Others had lost so much.

I had prayed for God to save our place. He had. And I was deeply, deeply grateful.

But I’d also prayed for our friends and neighbors. Some of them came home to devastating losses.

How do you rejoice over what you’ve been spared while grieving what someone else has lost?

I didn’t have a simple answer. Still don’t. Then I began to understand that gratitude and grief don’t have to cancel each other out.

I could thank God for our home. And grieve with my friends. I could be relieved. And heartbroken.

I could celebrate what survived without pretending the surrounding losses didn’t hurt.

As I thought back over those horrifying days, another realization settled over me. We hadn’t gotten through this alone. Our sons came. Friends came. A water truck showed up when our own equipment was committed to the fires.

Dozers showed up. Firefighters came. People brought food. They donated supplies. Prayed.

Friends called and texted. Gift cards came in from Texas, Western Washington, Colorado.

My readers prayed. Some of these people know us personally. Some don’t.

Yet they lifted us in prayer, checked on us, and offered help and support.

What had begun as our community and family’s wildfire story had reached people across the country.

And they cared.

When the Modrite Wildland Fire first started, it was fifteen miles away. Fifteen miles seemed far enough. Until it wasn’t.

I went from watching a fire on an app to watching it from our rooftop. Watched it go to Level 1 for several days. Then from Level 2 to 3 in a matter of hours.

We went from packing papers and belongings to filming the contents in our shop, outbuildings, and home for insurance purposes because we didn’t know whether we’d ever see it the same way again.

Then we drove away. And eventually, by God’s grace, we came home six days later, as you learned in the last episode.

But I didn’t come home unchanged.

I saw God show up.

Community came together and fought. I witnessed God’s grace and provision firsthand.

Before the fire, June had already been difficult. There had been frightening cancer news.

The death of my uncle. Painful anniversaries involving my horses. Burnout. Depression.

Then came the fire.

At the time, I wondered how much more I could handle.

Looking back, I don’t see a woman who handled everything perfectly.

I see a woman who kept taking the next step. Along with her incredible community.

Packing the next bag. Making the next phone call. Driving the next mile. Saying the next prayer. Trying to keep up.

All the people God placed around us along the way is simply amazing.

Through this experience, I was reminded that His presence doesn’t always mean the flames never come.

Sometimes they do.

Now and then life changes in ways we desperately wish it wouldn’t.

But He’s still with us in the fear and the flames.

In the waiting, the leaving, and in the people who show up. He’s also in the coming home. I learned how faithful God really is, even in loss. Because no lives were taken.

A devotional I’d read during a different difficult season helped me keep returning to that truth.

Jesus Calling by Sarah Young reminded me to turn toward God when fear, grief, and exhaustion threatened to overwhelm me.

If you’re walking through your own kind of fire right now, maybe its words will encourage you too.

Get your copy of this devotional.

If you’ve followed our Modrite Wildfire story from the beginning, thank you for walking through it with us.

One Last Question

Has God ever used a difficult season to change the way you see home, family, faith, or the people around you?

Share your story in the comments. You never know who might need the encouragement your words can offer.

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