The Things We Lose to the Fire & Finding Life Thereafter

On Not Going Back to School

“Suffering can refine us rather than destroy us because God himself walks with us in the fire.”

Dr. Tim Keller, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

I published the essay I’m sharing today at The Way Back to Ourselves just last month, but after reading

Karen Swallow Prior

’s heartfelt essay, On Not Going Back to School, I felt moved to share it here for my Substack friends. To say her words resonated with me is an understatement. I reached out to her to share my story, and she was so generous to read it and relate with me. It’s good to know we are not alone—although I wouldn’t wish this type of pain on anyone.

Happy reading. I am glad you’re here.

1.

It’s often we hear about homes burning down to the ground and people losing everything. Collectively, we understand on a gut-level what that means for the survivors. It’s an object lesson in randomness, vulnerability, and the unified response of the village.

We understand what the fire does, the lives that are shattered in one devastating night, and the tangibility of a loss that takes years to recover from.

But sometimes, lives burn down like houses do, too. And when it happens, we find ourselves a little unnerved by the randomness, our own disbelief, and our less-assured heroic response.

How do we navigate THAT kind of grief? When lives are upended by cancer or addiction? When chronic illness shows up unannounced to swallow someone whole? Or when mental illness becomes a familiar bedmate?

What do we do then when these more nebulous traumas burn everything up—like the forest fires out West? What do we do then, for ourselves or our loved ones, when the fire comes nipping at our heals?

These are hard questions to ask, and harder questions to answer.

Yes, there are things we lose to the fires of life that are just as real as homes—like jobs, relationships, health, sanity, hopes, dreams, and more.

It can happen to any of us:

All the while we were happily busy, planting saplings in other regions, something had gone amiss elsewhere. Somewhere, pine needles grew dry, and the heat of the day became too much. And just like that, something begins to smolder. Smoke entrails materialize in dormant forests we’ve long forgotten. A tumor, a lie, a trouble, a loss—like a small flame—soon ignites and then devours the whole copse before we know it.

And when that blazing fire encroaches into your good work or good health or good life, the devastation can be catastrophic.

One minute you are planting. In the next, you are on fire.

2.

My life for the past several years has been like that forest fire. I would say a housefire, but the fire consumed more than our home. It extended beyond our property lines and consumed everything my hands touched: fertility, health, independence, the ability to care for our daughter, jobs, opportunities, relationships, and more.

This is all hitting me harder than it should tonight, this July 30th, at 2:24 AM, as I write these words. In another world, I would be sound asleep having my annual “back-to-school teacher dreams” in great anticipation of my twentieth year in education.

I would have reported to room 925 to love and teach more students and co-labor with colleagues I faithfully served beside for nearly a decade. But instead, I find myself avoiding sleep because I don’t want to dream my teacher dreams, and I don’t want to wake up later than 5:30 a.m. with nowhere to go.

You see, teaching was NEVER just a job for me. It was my life, my calling, my raison d’etre. I was barren for years, and teaching saved my life. It allowed me to mother when I couldn’t mother my own child. It rescued me from self-pity, self-involvement, and self-destruction. And it allowed me to birth so many beautiful things when I couldn’t birth my own.

So, not doing this job kills me a little bit in moments like tonight.

The truth is room 925 has been lost to the fire. I will never step foot in my classroom again. Year nine at my desk, mentoring so many needy students, will not happen. I can no longer call myself a high school English teacher or department head. I am not “Mrs. Phinney” for the first time in my adult life.

These are very real losses—like family heirlooms devoured in a housefire: the books, the photos, the precious keepsakes that can never be replaced. I have known this kind of loss because my time inside the four walls of 925 was just that: a home.

But now, what I was and what I did are memories, bathed in ash and smoke.

This idea of memories and accepting what no longer “is” was the heavy emotional work of my summer. When everything was said and done, my teaching career was reduced to several dingy boxes, many of which I wasn’t given the dignity of packing myself. We found them on my last day, stuffed in a corner with junk and things that weren’t even mine. I was moved out of my office and classroom without being asked or told.

I cried inconsolably with my husband and daughter on the ride home as I processed all that had transpired. There was no closure, no proper goodbyes, no peaceful release. Just more ash and smoke.

(NOTE: I need to be honest here because this is my story to tell; I didn’t leave teaching willingly. I left because I had no other choice. I could have lived and died loving and teaching life lessons in room 925 had things been different—and had I never gotten sick.)

For six weeks, the boxes sat haphazardly in our dining room. I walked around them and wouldn’t look at them as they protruded into the walkway. My husband would gently nudge, “Do you want me to take care of it? Do you want me to help?” But he understood I needed to do it for myself. So, he waited, as I couldn’t bring myself to even acknowledge they were there, week after week. Acknowledging them meant this chapter was truly over. It meant I would have to reckon with things I couldn’t. It meant I would have to unpack each box and go through each item that survived the fire to determine what was garbage and what was mine, what I would keep, what I needed to let go, and what I needed to mourn.

I only recently started the process, and I am still not done. There are hundreds of books and student letters. Thousands of lesson plans, pictures, and office supplies. The amount of tears I have cried over this debris is more than I can manage—especially when I found a note from a student who I loved with all my heart. She told me that I changed her life and was born to teach.

It was a beautiful, painful gift.

3.

Oh, the things we lose to the fire. And, oh, the humbling lessons we learn.

I learned that sweeping fires of illness come, even for high-functioning 37-year-olds. I learned none of us are impervious to disease and destruction. I also learned that when it happens, it is far too hard for people to believe, so they often don’t. Some will blame you or ostracize you because it’s easier than thinking it could just have easily happened to them. It’s human nature. We love having strong opinions about things we know nothing about.

I also learned that the castles we build, even with pure intentions, can be burned down by outsiders in a single night. And where does that leave you? We build anyway, but we can’t put all our worth in the castles we are building, and we can’t openly trust just anyone. We must put our worth and trust in the God of the Universe and trust him with our days.

The fire of illness also taught me how out of order I really was, and I take full responsibility for that.

And the fire left nothing untouched. I have burns all over my body and heart. Scars from scalpels and cutting things, and scars from people I loved the most. I can’t decide which hurts more: this disease that has consumed my life or the things and people I lost.

To help me cope, my husband reminds me that in crisis you quickly learn who loved you, too. So, love who stays, and let the rest go. What remains is real. He tells me to build again and pour myself into the future. Stop looking behind. He tells me my people will find me. And that my daughter needs to see a hero in her mom, so keep going. And that he will never leave.

Another beautiful gift.

4.

So, today, please forgive me as I wax poetic and use up this space for my somewhat personal use. But I promise you, I am landing on something true here. Please stay with me.

Here are the two things I know for sure:

FIRST, sometimes people’s lives burn down around them. BUT what matters is what we do in the aftermath. How do we show up, help ourselves, help others, and move on in dignity and grace? How do we say, “Yes, this is excruciating, and I am mad and hurt and torn asunder,” and also say, “There is something beautiful here, and there is new life burgeoning beneath these ashes”?

It all has to do with what God is doing. He makes beauty from ashes. But you must have a fire first. And though I am actively grieving today in a big way, my faith tells me to let go and let God do what he is doing. It tells me to forgive and not be defeated. It tells me to show up wholehearted and completely authentic for myself and the ones I love.

Now that I have survived my own fire (though we are still in the flames until we survive through surgery), I also know how to show up for others unflinchingly. I can carry the hard with them. I can suture their cuts and clean their burns. I can scavenge for what remains and help piece it back together.

You know, I always found it strange when they interviewed people who lost their homes to a fire in those “Where Are They Now?” segments on the nightly news. The families always said that they were grateful for the fire. They always said it made them realize what was truly important. It made them wake up to their own lives and do things differently. As a child, that really bothered me. I couldn't believe that anyone would be okay with their home burning down.

But now I can tell you they were exactly right. So much of my life has burned to the ground in the course of a year. Some have called my tears dramatic. Some have said I wasn’t sick. Some even said God was trying to teach me a tough lesson I clearly needed to learn. But in all this fire, I praise God. He delivered me through it alive in Him. He removed scales from my eyes. He eviscerated my need to please others and my preoccupation with what others thought so I could come home to myself and love him more.

Today, so much of it has melted away and all I see is Him, his purpose for my life, the places where I need to grow and take responsibility for my own healing, and the beautiful souls who are still standing with me. I am very much a work-in-progress, but I am laser-focused on my faith, daughter, marriage, people, and mission. And though we are still waiting for the last of the fire to extinguish, we can see little glimmers of hope—signs of beauty from the ashes.

To have beauty, you need ashes. And to have ashes, you need fires.

What a wild thought.  

I share all of this to say this: if your life is burning down around you, know that you are not alone. You have a Father who loves you and sees the truth in your story. He will be there in the burning, and he will be there afterward to clean you up—just like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendego.

And if you love someone whose life is burning down around them, won’t you lean in a little more? Won’t you be willing to be a little uncomfortable to comfort them? You have no idea what your loving presence can do for someone who is suffering or lonely. And if you don’t know what to say, just tell them you believe them. Just tell them you see them. Just sit there with them and take up space because you know in your bones one day the fire will come for us all.

May we cling to God and find heaps of compassion for ourselves and others.

5.

I know I am running a bit long here, but I would really drop the ball if I didn’t share these scriptures with you about walking through the fire and the promises God gives us in our lives thereafter:

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.” Isaiah 43:2

“If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out…” Daniel 3:17

 “…for those who grieve… bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.” Isaiah 61:3

And I have to give another plug for my guy, Dr. Tim Keller. If you are in the fire of suffering, I highly recommend you read Walking with God through Pain and Suffering. Dr. Keller knew the fire. He lived it until the day he died. And this book is a true saving grace. It teaches you about the fire, how to survive it, WHO is with you in it, and the blessings that can come from suffering.

And if you are burning tonight, dear friend, may you know that God is with you, and may you find your life thereafter.

You belong here,

me

*Originally published at The Way Back to Ourselves.