Pajamas

We woke up yesterday* to a wrong-colored world and a dark cloud that looked like the coming apocalypse. It happened so fast. Before I even left for work I’d gotten word that friends’ houses were burning and everyone we knew in the town of Paradise was evacuating.

I drove to work under a strange sky and ominous cloud. All day we relayed messages, waited, and prayed for people who were trapped at home or trapped in evacuation traffic. We fielded harrowing phone calls, emails, text and Facebook messages.

By evening all those we knew were safe and accounted for. But by evening the fire was reaching for Chico, and Paul and I began our own evacuation preparations, just in case. We valued and de-valued our possessions and were surprised at what did and didn’t make the cut.

We decided to sleep in shifts. Paul slept on the couch for a couple of hours. Then I climbed, fully clothed, into bed for my shift. I’ve battled insomnia off and on for the last four years. Times like this are not good times for sleep. But I prayed, “Heavenly Father, please give me sleep, You know how badly I need it.”

Paul finally walked in to wake me at 7:00 am. I’d slept a sleep like death for a full six hours and had at least two left in me. Nobody but someone with insomnia recognizes what a gift that sleep was.

By morning the blanket of smoke had settled over the valley along with the thirty-thousand or more precious souls displaced by the fire and along with the ashes of their homes and treasured possessions.

We went to work on Friday with feelings as confusing as the charcoal-orange sky. I drove home in the dark, headlights on at noon.

Tonight I’m thankful for God’s mercy in sparing the lives of so many people He has taught me to love.

Tonight I’m praying for the transition that has to come and the unimaginable task of permanently re-settling a number of people so big I can’t wrap my head around it.

Tonight, the danger to Chico appears to be over, so I finally marked myself “safe” on Facebook. But the truth is that in God’s hands I am always safe, no matter my circumstances.

But tonight I am wearing pajamas.



*I first wrote these words as a Facebook update on the evening of the second day of the Camp Fire that destroyed the neighboring towns of Paradise, Concow, and Magalia, CA on November 8, 2018. The fire still burns today, over a week later. The smoke still fills our valley. The number of dead is so far in the 70's. The number of missing, over 1000.

If you are reading this, please pray for the people of Paradise and the small cities of Chico and Oroville (and others) who are loosening their belts, trying to their best make room for all these displaced and grieving people, trying to make a place for them a place to call home.