Thursday morning tragedy hit. I came back home from work to find I was homeless. There was a police car parked near my building--but that's not uncommon so I thought nothing of it. When approaching my building, i saw a charred chair and other items sitting on the edge of the sidewalk, and looked up to see a notice posted beside my doorway. Uck. That feeling in the pit of my stomach. The notice said something about "Dangerous building." I also noticed that my curtains were pulled down and my blinds were drawn. I was pretty apprehensive as I turned the key in my deadbolt and opened my door to assess the situation.
Opening the door, I could see into the next apartment through a gaping hole in the kitchen wall. The cabinets were in transition between hanging by a thread and finally tumbling to the floor. Smoke stains had seeped down the walls, although none of the items in my living room had burned. As curiosity spurred me on, I gingerly walked through the kitchen entrance into the hallway where my bedroom and bathroom are. The bathroom was as shredded as the kitchen, with the wall torn up and the medicine cabinet just gone-smashed. Unrecognizeable. So I ventured into my bedroom to see that, while soaked, nothing had burned in there either. Could have been much worse, although it remains to be seen just how much can be salvaged from smoke and water damage.
At the office I was given a pamphlet for the Red Cross and told they would give me a voucher for a motel for a few days, and they would be working on finding accomodations in empty apartments for the 35 of us displaced.
I immediately posted a status update on Facebook, hoping for prayers, and called the Red Cross. They told me a caseworker would call me back in about a half hour. That call never came. Then that I called my mom to let her know what was going on.
Within a half hour from my Facebook post, a member of my congregation called me and offered a place to stay. As it turned out, he had a moment to check Facebook although he normally doesn't get to. Further, his wife just happened to have an unusual 2-hour gap between seeing clients and could meet me to let me in. God does work in amazing ways.
In the meantime, and continuing throughout the day, I was inundated with well-wishing and offers of help from friends, some of whom I rarely see in person. I have kept all of them in mind although I don't know yet how much help I will end up needing.
Through all this, I was surprisingly unemotional despite the fact that this very situation has always been one of my fears. I think the biggest feeling I've had is a sense of uncertainty about what I am going to do, and the absolute overwhelming emotions that came with the flood of generosity that people have shown me over the last few days. I actually broke out crying with joy Thursday night on the way to work, because I just don't feel worthy of all the compassion and generosity I've been flooded with.
So currently I'm waiting on a call back from the apartment complex I had been set to move into come June when my lease here is up. My current place will have an open apartment for me, but offerred to let me out of my lease early so I don't have to move my stuff twice in the next couple months.
I've never understood people who get mad at and doubt God when tragedy strikes, although I've also known I shouldn't judge until I've walked in their shoes. I still don't understand them, because even when i had no idea that everything was going to work out i had the sense that I could trust Him--even if I ended up living out of my car. Perhaps it's just that I've never been taught that God owed me anything. I don't know. I just know He's good--no matter what the circumstance.
