It’s 9:30pm and the horizon is glowing.  From my deck I can see spots of red where homes are burning.  I pray.

The fire that burned in our community a year ago destroyed over 340 homes.  It stopped mere feet from our own.  How well I remember, how well this entire community remembers, what it felt like.  The smoke.  The heat.  The falling embers.  The fear that threatened to devour much more than flames.

To evacuate.  To see fire in the rearview mirror.  To not know if our house stood or fell.  To pray.  To lay in bed and hold my husband, be held by my husband, and know that though the mountains shake and fall into the sea…I would remain held.  Held by Love. Then to wake to the unknown…

Last year we retreated to the home of good friends who welcomed us with warmth and clean sheets.  We spent a week with them.  The chaos and trauma became a doorway of intimacy and shared faith.

I look to the horizon tonight and I don’t know if their house will be standing in the morning.  These dear ones, with 2,000 others, have been evacuated.  Homes are burning.  Will theirs last the night?  The week?

I don’t know.

I pray.  Like so many others, I pray.

But I do know, that though the mountains fall into the sea, they will be held.  Their faith has been tested by fire too many times already, but tonight, being tested again…the purest of gold is being forged.  And they are now, and I am now, and you are now, being held by Love.

A love that never fails.