Burn Baby Burn!!!!

Yesterday, my graduate research completely distracted me from every day life and because of that I never posted. Not a good excuse, I know, but it is the truth. I did spend time throughout the day thinking about different ideas and attributes of my life and how they have impacted me.

In middle school we learned about the Fire of '47, which was a huge devastating fire that burned extensive amounts of Mount Desert Island and also traveled onto the mainland as well. This tragedy was of great interest to me for some reason. I liked learning about how it effected the people, how life changed on MDI after the fire and how the land bounced back after such an uncontrollable blaze.

One little fact I remember while studying the fire was that while right after a fire everything is dead and burned (depending on the severity and type of fire), the land normally bounces back and growth is even better than it was before the fire. Since that tid bit of information was from around 4th grade, I wanted to investigate to see if there was some validity to this. I simply googled the idea and came across this site: http://www.forestencyclopedia.net/p/p679. It was very helpful and informative and not to complicated to explain in a short blog. It is true to some extent. There are so many different things that a fire can change/effect in an environment but I come to the conclusion that it can be very beneficial to the land. While the fire might deplete the nutrients in the soil, it can increase the nutrients available to the land. A fire also releases nutrients that are trapped in dead organic matter (dead trees etc.), and even redistributes it throughout the area.

 (If you are completely lost at this point, don't fret, here is where I make the connection to our lives).

We all experience many different fires in our lives. Some of those fires are small controlled burns that remove refuse from our lives. Other fires though start with a small spark, land on something dried and dead, and quickly grows into a ragging inferno! (Today I am using fires as a 'negative' or difficult point in our lives. Many times people talk about being 'on fire' for the LORD, which is a great idea and I'll probably talk about that at some point.) What people don't realize while a fire is raging is that it can be good for the land, they are just trying to put it out. But, I am convinced that God does many controlled burns in our lives to remove things that shouldn't be there. Fire is a very quick, efficient way to destroy things. But to quote one of my favorite movies "Up from the ashes, up from the ashes, grow the roses of success!" If you have experienced an extremely hot, uncontrollable inferno in your lifetime, know that God is just prepping you for something bigger and better! The story of Job comes to mind...... : )