Rae is gone at her youth group retreat and I am really missing her...funny...I am not a mom who normally laments these moments, but this one has hit me hard...first time away from home alone and mom is feeling it.
Snow and ice is outside on my deck and it is near zero degrees, yet there is something so peaceful and wonderful about that. Maybe it is the fire that warms it all up and makes it all work. Maybe it isn't, but whatever it is...it works.
Eric out early...it is Saturday. Adam and Mina are sleeping and the birds are actually quiet for a change. Lance is laying nearby and all is well. As I look at the fire, I realize that strangely, it is somewhat like me. I just put a large log on it and it burned fiercely for a few moments. I just glanced over to see a small flame and nothing more...just like me. On fire, fully blazing, and then...a little spark. I go put more wood on the fire and stoke it and the flames return...but for how long? Why does MY fire continue to return to a pile of ashes, not resembling anything beautiful at all. Once, it was a blazing inferno and then - just like that - ashes.
It just struck me. It isn't at all "just like that". Just as the fire went through stages to make it from blazing to cold ashes, so my life goes through stages. Unlike the fire, it isn't as simple as stoking or throwing a log on to rekindle that flame, and sometimes the ash pile becomes seemingly unmanageable. But, very much like the fire, it can be rekindled. So, this morning, I will go and throw another log on the fire...perhaps stoke it a bit...watch it blaze, knowing that the ash pile is inevitable, but that the ash is very much part of the fire and in the end, it is what keeps the coals warm to enable such a blazing fire. So my life will be today...a blazing fire if I let it...a pile of ashes if I let it...decision seems like a no brainer, doesn't it. Today, I choose fire.
