This was the Facebook post that finally convinced me once and for all that I needed a blog. It had 1,617 likes/loves/sad/astounded emojis, over a hundred comments, and 1,331 shares. Totally by telling it like it is.
What’s going on in Sevier County, you want to know? You REALLY want to know?
Well, the fires aren’t out, unfortunately. They tell me that they keep popping back up from where it was so hot for so long. The fire travels underground, through root growth. Also, when we’ve suffered a drought for the last few months, four inches of rain in two days isn’t hardly enough. It’s better…but it ain’t over. And there are new problems concerning the ashes & rubble now washing into drainage ditches & storm drains clogging the whole system. But that’s less of an evil than what whipped through Monday night. The news isn’t telling it all. Maybe they’re afraid we’re too fragile. But we know.
The absolute generosity & outpouring of volunteers in the Volunteer State is truly mind boggling. Every morning & night I give Facebook a quick scroll & I’m astounded by what I see. The compassion & the prayers & the overall messages of “Where can I help today? Who needs what where? Does anybody need a shower & bed?” while I just go to work, driving by loaded trucks & trailers & the ever lit-up churches & fire departments bursting at the seams with supplies & people. People opening their homes, their businesses, their barns & their fields to displaced families & creatures.
Thank you Lord for the people.
Sure I’ve seen the posts from the misguided few that wish all the “hillbilly Trump lovers would burn burn burn” but those people aren’t worth getting feathers ruffled over.
So we’ll build back.
It really will be okay.
And we need more rain.
Please continue to pray for the lost, the faith of a community, & the resiliency of a mountain people not to be tarnished from the likes of the firestorm that destroyed all for some. Pray for our firemen, dead on their feet but unable to quench their desire to help, to seek out & destroy the last glowing ember. Pray for the officials who carry the weight of a town on their shoulders. A town that everybody has visited at one point or another. Good Lord pray for those dispatchers, still tethered in their own hell, some who have worked 32 hours in two days, a relentless screaming in their ears from people who have lost it all. And in the other ear, emergency responders trying to help. Trying to get there. I have no doubt they’ll hear those screams in their nightmares for years to come. That’s a harsh reality & side effect. Pray for the volunteers. I hope they know what a difference they’re making, a soothing presence in a sea of uncertainty.
So that’s what Sevier County is like right now. People still unable to go back to their home–or face the ashes of their home, perhaps. The sirens have abated, but the tears still fall.
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