Nineteen Firefighters
I try to maintain a certain amount of distance from firefighting tragedies, but sometimes, they can't be ignored.
Like 9/11.
Like Christmas Eve last year.
And like the one in Arizona this past weekend.
Nineteen elite firefighters, gone. All men in their twenties and thirties, men with wives, young children, parents, siblings, friends.
So many broken hearts.
I watched an interview with Julianne Ashcraft, whose husband was one of the fallen, and she shared how she and her husband had been texting back and forth the day he died, sharing photos of the kids, talking about church, talking about the fire he was fighting. And saying I love you or I miss you a lot.
It was just a little too familiar.
It's the same for soldier's wives, for police officer's wives...you ignore it on a constant basis (because if you didn't, you couldn't function) but always in the back of your mind is the notion that your husband might not come home.
I wouldn't say that it's fear that creeps up when I consider the dangers of the job. Seth and I are not afraid of death. I'm not afraid of how I would care for our children, how I would make ends meet, how I would function, because I know that, by the grace of God, things would work out.
It's not fear. It's the fact that just imagining it breaks my heart to pieces, and if it actually happened...
There are nineteen families suffocating in their grief right now. Nineteen families whose nightmares have become reality. Hundreds of lives have been placed on entirely different paths. So many kids without dads.
But a few things Julianne Ashcraft said stuck out to me, because I could imagine saying them about Seth too.
She said her husband was a hero at home first.
His kids knew he loved them. His wife knew she was cherished. He was a good man who put his family first and was also a man of integrity at work.
Being a hero at home is the most important kind of hero to those families.
I will be praying for those wives and families, for the sole survivor who lost his entire unit, for the community who lost 20% of their fire department. For no further casualties fighting this massive fire.
And for grief to find peace in Christ.
Like 9/11.
Like Christmas Eve last year.
And like the one in Arizona this past weekend.
Nineteen elite firefighters, gone. All men in their twenties and thirties, men with wives, young children, parents, siblings, friends.
So many broken hearts.
I watched an interview with Julianne Ashcraft, whose husband was one of the fallen, and she shared how she and her husband had been texting back and forth the day he died, sharing photos of the kids, talking about church, talking about the fire he was fighting. And saying I love you or I miss you a lot.
It was just a little too familiar.
It's the same for soldier's wives, for police officer's wives...you ignore it on a constant basis (because if you didn't, you couldn't function) but always in the back of your mind is the notion that your husband might not come home.
I wouldn't say that it's fear that creeps up when I consider the dangers of the job. Seth and I are not afraid of death. I'm not afraid of how I would care for our children, how I would make ends meet, how I would function, because I know that, by the grace of God, things would work out.
It's not fear. It's the fact that just imagining it breaks my heart to pieces, and if it actually happened...
There are nineteen families suffocating in their grief right now. Nineteen families whose nightmares have become reality. Hundreds of lives have been placed on entirely different paths. So many kids without dads.
But a few things Julianne Ashcraft said stuck out to me, because I could imagine saying them about Seth too.
She said her husband was a hero at home first.
His kids knew he loved them. His wife knew she was cherished. He was a good man who put his family first and was also a man of integrity at work.
Being a hero at home is the most important kind of hero to those families.
I will be praying for those wives and families, for the sole survivor who lost his entire unit, for the community who lost 20% of their fire department. For no further casualties fighting this massive fire.
And for grief to find peace in Christ.
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