Amidst the Ashes

As our family historian, naturally I thought of all the photos that were probably left behind as people fled their homes from California’s recent catastrophic fires. Elsewhere, thousands of evacuees were just glad to be alive and still breathing.

On some days the smell of smoke from the fires drifted into my window from 60 miles away. I couldn’t help but glance up at the ominous smog spread across the morning sky, as I drove into work each day.

News stories about the devastation and images of teary-eyed families flooded across television screens, but nothing has been quite like hearing about it first hand or seeing photos up close. A friend of mine who worked in the relief effort recounted how some distraught families recreated a sort of mini-tent neighborhood. Choosing to forego the bright lights of gymnasiums and luxury style army cots inside evacuation centers, they lodged outside in parking lots instead. Former neighbors once comfortable in their houses were now neighbors once again, preferring the privacy of donated tents or their cars – eating, weeping and sleeping – just without the four walls. These are the “pictures” we seldom see.

Now there are new photo memories, awful, sad, images wrapped around the realities of twisted metal and piles of charred, broken bricks and burned out vehicles. It is the new norm for communities like Middletown. Yet somehow, up out of such destruction, amidst the ashes, a garden of fresh greenery has survived. Despite the drought-stricken and charred landscape are round, green and red, plump tomatoes in all stages of development, still thriving. They have been planted there by hands that never expected to see so much pain amidst the fruits of their labor.

I want to believe that the residents of those communities will capture new images as they rebuild and return home, resolved to restore their lives with those most dear to them. Though it will be a place where the ruins of homes lie under thick mounds of cold ash, I pray their peace will return and their faith will be sustained. I pray it will be a place where not only survival and perseverance exists, but also where hope will flourish, and where red, ripe tomatoes still grow – even there amidst the ashes.

“To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called the trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.” (Isaiah 61:3 KJV).

Photo a tributed to: http://themasterslight.blogspot.com/