Last year wildland fires consumed millions and millions of acres of our countries forests. If you lived anywhere in the West, you would remember vividly. Even from hundreds of miles away, these fires impacted each of us. Bogged down by smoke, the air was hot and muggy. Suppressing. Stifling. Smothering.
This Summer, few fires have been reported thus far. The air is clear. Forest service roads are open for travel. We can all quite literally, breathe deeply again.
My husband used to work in wildland, so he enjoys exploring the areas of last years fires- seeing how it impacted the environment and trying to decipher how the crews fought and contained it.
Before him, I’d never done this. I’d look at the aftermath the fire caused from far away, but never up close. Most people want to keep clear of it.
From a distance, a forest fire burn scar looks exactly like it sounds- like a scar. Dark. Red. Sunken. Ugly. Charred stumps. Dead trees leaning against other trees- some orange- some black- some gray. But get closer and things start to change. Grass- bright green grass- lush and soft and plentiful, growing beneath a canopy of death- and flowers- so many flowers- springing up from the mulchy soil caused by the fire.
What looks like a war scene from far away, is transforming into a paradise when you get close up.
How can this be?
I ask my husband this and he starts talking about how fire is good for the forest- cleaning the forest floor of years of debris, opening up room for more sunlight to penetrate the earth and allow new grasses, herbs and shrubs to grow, providing good nourishment for the wildlife. Forest fires kill diseases and insects that prey on plants and animals, and encourage new growth from trees whose cones require heat to open and release seeds for regeneration.
My husband keeps talking, enamored with the benefits of fire, but a phrase keeps repeating in my mind.
Beauty- from ashes.
Of course. That’s just the way God likes to do things. Even here- in nature- he is redeeming what seems hopeless. Even in this war zone, “his invisible attributes are seen.”
Even the forest fires tell the story of his redemption.
Sometimes life feels like a forest fire. Whether you’re in the flames, or just outside of them- they affect you.
Hot. Uncomfortable. You fear for the lives of those caught in the fire. You grieve the loss of the forest you once knew. You wonder how things can ever go back to the way they were.
And from the outside, the smoke is stifling. Overbearing. All you want is to see the blue sky again that you took for granted for so long.
But life can’t keep burning forever.
Eventually, even without wildland firefighters, flames die down.
After all, fires occurred long before we had crews to fight them.
But the growth isn’t immediate.
Sometimes, it doesn’t even happen during the course of the next year.
Sometimes it just looks dead- for months, and months on end.
Limbs falling from trees to weak to hold them up. A place that once was home to bears and deer, chipmunks, and woodpeckers, abandoned because there’s nothing for them anymore.
It’s a wasteland.
But God is in the business of transforming wastelands.
“Do not call to mind the former things; pay no attention to the things of old. Behold, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming.
Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert.” –Isaiah 43:18-19
Maybe your life feels like it’s on fire right now. If it is, I’m so sorry. I’ve been there. And I know it feels hopeless. I know all you can see is the destruction all around you. You’re choking on smoke. You feel weak.
Then once it’s over, and the smoke is cleared, all you see is rubble.
A total loss.
You wait. You pray.
Sometimes for years, as you wade through the dust of all you once knew.
Take heart. Be patient.
For when you least expect it, your earth will spring forth with life once more.
Flowers, more beautiful than the ones that were destroyed, will grace your barren land. Grass, so green, so fresh, so cleansing, will cover your charred and broken places. The loss you experienced will give you room- room to let the light in.
The flames that hurt you,
will be the flames that heal you.
In the Bible, God is called a “consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29), John- who paved the way for Jesus- told his followers that the Messiah would baptize them with “the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Matthew 4:11)
The Lord appeared to Moses as a burning bush. When the apostles received the Holy Spirit- tongues of fire rested over them.
And in Luke 12:49, Jesus says this-
“I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were
already kindled!”
When we think of fire, sometimes all we see is death- big orange, ravenous flames, with the ability to consume us. Yet, fire is also a purifier, a cleanser.
And strangely, through pain and desecration, God cleanses us.
Ridding us of the disease of our sin, clearing out years of debris, letting light shine on our broken places and replacing a heart of stone and darkness, where nothing can grow, with a heart ready and able to produce beauty and life.
As we drove away that night, through the acres of wasteland, the road was quiet and desolate. No one wants to visit a graveyard of trees and ash. But as we spotted a mama bear and her cubs, perched on a open hillside in the sun, chewing on the little purple wildflowers that had grown up from the fire- I thought about how someday, people may call this forest the most beautiful place on earth.
Increase-from decrease.
Life- from death.
Beauty- from ashes.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” -John 12:24
A side by side comparison of the effects of a forest fire- pictures taken 1 year apart at the same location in the front range of Colorado.
[…] 2. Beauty from Ashes […]