catapult magazine

The story of our home

by Joanna Shumaker

As I ran up the blocked road, past fire trucks and emergency personnel, I saw the smoke pouring out of my broken front window.  My curtains were hanging out, blackened from the smoke.   Every window was broken.  Everything in the house was soaked from top to bottom from the fire hose.  But the house was saved!  Anything left in the house was either destroyed by fire or by water. Ironically, the very thing that saved the house itself destroyed the contents therein.

As we drove to our hotel room that night, I felt an emptiness I had never felt before.  I was “homeless.”  I had no material possessions except the clothes on my back.  It was a strange feeling.  I wasn’t devastated, but I felt the loss.  For the first time in my life, I realized that I did not own anything.  I knew, ultimately, God owned all that I had, but He had allowed it to be destroyed.  Still, I had a surreal calmness.  I owned nothing, but I had great treasure in the relationships all around me.  I still had my husband, children, family and friends. 

Did possessions really matter?  For this moment in time, they did not.