Firehouse memories...

It is now official. Paul is jobless and we are praying earnestly that we would be homeless in the near future as well. A little clarification may be needed here for some. Circumstances have worked out where I have been able to resign from my full-time job at the fire department so that we could finish raising our support and preparing to go to the field. We are still praying that God would provide a buyer or wisdom with regards to our house in Fairburn. Truly, the time is bitter-sweet for the both of us. Our whole marriage I have worked at the fire house and been away from home one out of every three days and nights. Sitting here typing this causes a flood of memories.
The training Lieutenant screaming at us for the tenth time to pull the hose of the truck and that if we didn’t get it right we’d have to do it again. Of course, you never could quite get it right. The weight of your gear and the exhaustion make it seem impossible and we know that when he is done with the drills that we would have to run three miles before we could go home.
The first time I drove a fire truck to a house fire we were supposed to be going out of the city for training. As we were driving the reserve truck we heard the radio traffic dispatch a fully involved dwelling. My Sergeant looked and me and asked, “Well, what are you waiting for?” I was like a kid riding his first skateboard. The lights lit up, the mechanical siren screamed and my heart pounded as I pulled the old cord on the ceiling to make the horn bellow like an enraged elephant.
My first fire, the first baby delivery, the first shooting, the first crazy person (patient that is), the endless pranks in the station and the faces of men and women I have spent a third of my life with roll across my memory.
Then there are the not so pleasant memories. An unresponsive family member in a home infested with roaches and filth lies in the small back bedroom. On the way out it is difficult to look the children in the eyes as you push their loved one out on a stretcher.
Six grown men huddle together on the floor working feverishly to figure out why this baby is limp and unresponsive. He has been striped to his diaper, electrodes attached all over, needles pierce his skin and last minute vitals are taken as the pounding of helicopter blades is heard outside to take him away.
What do you say to the parent of the 14 year old who was killed because his head went through the windshield? What do you say to the teenage mother after you have just delivered her still born 16 week old infant? What do you say to the wife who woke up next to her dead husband or the young boy whose eyes are swollen shut because of a gang initiation with a baseball bat?
A grown man sits on his truck crying because he loves his wife and he doesn’t know if he can handle the fighting or mistrust anymore. A rookie fireman sits in the day room and laughs nervously with his brothers as their usual coping mechanism of humor is used in regards to the first death that he has seen in a car accident. In the moments alone in his bunkroom the questions arise and the callousness of experience starts to build around his heart and mind.
God is in the business of redeeming His elect in a fallen, dying world. You can only mask the misery and pain that the evil of our nature has caused this creation so much before you must find an answer. I would not trade the time, relationship or experiences that God has allowed me this last period of my life. He has shown me His arm in the midst of some men and women that I have come to love for almost ten years. I don’t doubt what he has called me and Emily too and am thoroughly excited now that we are walking down that path. But, it breaks my heart to walk away knowing that some of these have not found or turned to the answer to such horrible suffering. Only in understanding and accepting the sacrifice of Christ can we taste of the hope that God has for His people. I hope that I never quit praying that those who are His within this group would be called out and that those who profess Christ will grow in truth and stand in the gap. I long for the day we stand in eternity and get to see how He worked in the lives of these firefighters to bring Himself glory from the ashes.