Thank you!

From my husband:

Hello Everyone,

I wanted to take a moment to THANK YOU! for all of your kindness and support during this time since the wildfire took our and many other homes. Particularly since so many have lavished gifts upon us, I also wanted to give you some details. First of all, I am humbled by how difficult and exhausting this whole process has been. A few years ago, I worked with Samaritan’s Purse sifting ashes in an area about an hour from here. I never imagined how difficult it was for those we served. I am also humbled by the outpouring of support from family, friends, churches, local businesses, and local services. THANK YOU!  
As for the details . . .

We quickly received the insurance money for our contents because our first list exceeded our limit by a good clip. We were under insured for contents by as much as $100k. The lesson here is to revisit your contents coverage when you have lived in the same house for almost 20 years. Contents seem to increase with time and kids : ) So we can’t go out and replace everything we had, but we don’t need to. We have food and covering, and with these we are content - most of the time : ).
We also quickly received the base coverage for the replacement of the house itself. With that we put the down payment on a house since no rentals for a family of 6 was showing up in our general area. We are wanting to rebuild our house and then sell or possibly rent the one we now live in in order to help pay for the rebuild. We thank the Lord for a house to live in all together as a family.

I am currently working with the insurance company and a contractor in order to justify maxing out the coverage amount for the rebuild. The lesson here is to revisit your dwelling coverage as the price of materials and labor goes up.
We are currently trying to decide on how to rebuild. Private contractor or group build? A private contractor is more expensive but allows us to rebuild similar to what we had in terms of number of rooms and square footage. In a group build, the options are limited but the price is lower. Thank the Lord for options.

Yes, I am trying to finish the DMin program at Master’s Seminary and graduate in May, Lord willing.

I tell you all of this not because we are looking for more gifts but because we have received gifts.

THANK YOU!

In Him,

Carl

From me:
There have been so many who have been incredibly generous to us in a tangible way:  family, friends, businesses, musicians, and organizations.  There have also been complete strangers who have blessed us unexpectedly.  Thank you!  I wanted to take a moment to mention just a few of the businesses and organizations though.  I probably am forgetting some, and many churches were generous, but these are some of those that have been really generous to us in one way or another:

Santa Rosa Symphony
Stanroy
Cokas Diko
Teamsters
Fleet Feet
Bed, Bath & Beyond
Creative Sonoma
Rincon Valley Christian School PSP
Chik-Fil-A
Redwood Gospel Mission
Jackson's Bar & Oven
Shutterfly
Evy's Tree
Sara Groves
Redwood Empire Food Bank
Mombos Pizza
Maria Carillo High School
Cabi
Oska
Sons of Korah
Go Pro
Copperfields
Corricks
Clone
Redwood Empire Beauty College Salon
Equi Ed
Messiah Sing
Empire Soccer Club
Secret Santa
Village Art Supply
Riley Street
Bird's Nest
Focus on the Family
Santa Rosa Junior College
Sisters Consignment

Highland Hospital ED Staff
Sonoma Family Meals
and many churches, friends, and family.

Lately...some musings

I’ve been told that my posts have meant something good to some people.  That’s encouraging, and humbling.  You see, I don’t really often have much good to say in and of myself.  It’s definitely a work of God that what comes out continually isn’t grumbling pessimism.  And maybe you’ve heard that from me.  Please forgive me.  

I have been told I am blunt.  Too open.  I have tried to work on that.  So I won’t get graphic about the struggles in the last week in my body as I’ve battled a cold, and other things.  Or the deep struggles in my mind and turmoil in my soul as there are difficult things each day involving loved ones.  The main thing bugging me off and on this week was that I got to hear time and time again how much more money others are getting for their contents, when we had so much but never figured on total loss, when we were in our home so long and never reassessed all of our earthly possessions!  My kids never even had to finish their lists and I never did either.  We reached our maximum contents coverage before we reached our maximum contents cost.  You get what you’re insured for.  Our insurance company is better than others—easier, quicker, actually following through.  I’m thankful for that.  And I’m so sad for others who may not have that.  Someone said, “Job didn’t have insurance, and look how he ended up.”  I don’t necessarily find that comforting.  Job lost everything, as well as all the lives of his children, and I am still feeling his sorrow keenly despite him getting back so much more in the end.  Sorrow is sorrow.  I am told (and know) we have food and covering.  And very nice food and very nice covering, at that.  It’s true.  I am to be thankful.  I am thankful.  We bought a house when there aren’t any, and although it’s at a higher cost since we just had finished paying our house off, the taxes are triple, and the insurance doesn’t cover it since it’s not a rental, but there are no rentals….we all get to live together in a home that has been provided and beautifully decorated by loving friends and family.  I am blessed.  There had been so much generosity.  It’s all true.  But nevertheless, this wrenching is, well…wrenching.  Loss is loss.  And I tend towards pessimism. 

A favorite editorial writer put it this way, “I’ve always wanted to be an optimist because they are fun to be around. Instead I became a Christian. Which is an optimist but with good reasons. If I were not a Christian, I would be utterly unbearable.  So the difference between an optimist and a Christian is that the Christian has faith in what God will do while an optimist has faith in, well, I don’t know.”  As I hang out with God pouring over his Word (the Bible), I ask Him, “What are you going to do?  I don’t know how to think about all of this.”  

I see Jesus (God in a body) hanging out with people who are “harassed and helpless” hearing that he has compassion (Matthew 10:36).  I see Jesus, healing, forgiving sins, not having a home of his own, not really having stuff, healing again (a woman bleeding 12 years!), tenderly saying, “Take heart, daughter, your faith has made you well.” Before this he had taught that he who hears “these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock” (Matt. 7:24-27). Take a drive over to 3529 San Sonita Place, Santa Rosa, CA.  Many have told me that they can’t go or haven’t gone.  Go.  Let me know if you did.  See that although there is no “house” there, there are 6 “houses” (aka lives) that got blown on and beat on, but did not fall because they are founded on the Rock, Jesus Christ. 

Jesus says in Matthew 6, “Do not lay for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also….do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on.  Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ …But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matt. 6:25-34).  Ok.  So I have less than I did a few months ago.  I will never have all that I had a few months ago back.  So many of my neighbors and fellow fire families will have more than we have, or be richer, or better off, or able to buy more than we can.  Or not.  I don’t fully know, but I DO know that my treasure is in heaven.  That everything I had, don’t have, or will have is from God anyway.  And that the birds around here and the flowers are looking pretty cared for.  So I am to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.  That’s my aim.  Not to look around or worry.  Not to compare, unless it is to that sparrow or that daffodil. 

In the Old Testament, Psalm after Psalm, verse after verse, speaks of a God who is scary, yes, terrifying, yes, but also light, salvation, and a stonghold for those who hunker down in Him.  So I go into my thoughts.  I feel darkness, such darkness, He is light.  I feel lost, so confused, He is my salvation.  I feel weak, so finished, He is my stronghold.  I see birds and flowers, He has clothed them.  And me.  I feel anxious, I don’t need to be because He has me. He tells me I am valuable.  And that he knows of my needs.  He’s calling me to walk on in faith.  To lay up treasure in Heaven.  To take His words and do them.  And that He is WITH me in this.

So we end up in worse financial shape after all is said and done with insurance, and others do very, very well financially?  That’s alright.  It’s actually more than alright.  Praise God!  Never have I been reminded of His provision more than in these last months, through Scripture, and through people, unexpectedly, time and time again beyond my understanding.  I need to remember His faithfulness over all the years of my life.  Why is this any different?  As we hope to rebuild the dwelling at 3529 San Sonita Place, and wonder at how finances will work out, I can fully lay it ALL at my Savior's feet and hear Him say, “Take heart, daughter, your faith has made you well.”  I am still coughing and blowing my nose, but that’s not the focus, is it?  I just saw the most beautiful brown bird.