Gabe Almost Burned The House Down

Dear Kids,

So I have to tell you about an experience that happened with the house almost burned down.

Gabe has been playing with fire - A LOT. Most of the time he has been good about asking me and I tell him where is appropriate to light a fire. But this particular day, he didn't ask.

He grabbed the lighter and went outside and started to light dried leaves on fire, then blowing them out. He thought he blew one out and evidently put it on top of our outside toy box then came back inside.

Well, I started smelling smoke, and I dismissed it because they light fires in the field behind our house SO OFTEN I just didn't think twice. Of course, looking back, I had that "nagging" feeling which was obviously from the spirit, but I just didn't listen.

I was on the phone with someone when there was a loud pounding on the door. There was a man that said, "You need to get out of the house NOW! There is a fire out here!". I was in my back bedroom, so I didn't hear all of it, just muffled yelling, but the kids came running down the hallway and said, "Mom! There is a man who is trying to kidnap us!"

So I went outside and immediately knew there was an issue. I went around the side of the house and sure enough, there was a HUGE fire that was centered on the outside toy box thing. There were two men there that were actively putting it out. They had seen the smoke and jumped the back fence and were actively working on it when I got out there. I was just in shock!

They were AMAZING. They got it put out before the fire department arrived. Everything was okay, thanks to these guardian angels. After the craziness of the emergency was done I got a chance to talk to the kids and that's when I found out that Gabe had been playing with the lighter and dried leaves. He said he thought he blew it out, but obviously it didn't. There must have been something on top of the bin that caught on fire, because the bin was plastic.

The fire department got to the house and did a bunch of checks to make sure that it didn't get into the insulation in the roof, they said that is where the real danger comes in. The firefighters were awesome as well, so good with Gabe, so good with talking with him about what happened and the seriousness of playing with fire.

Gabe felt AWFUL. He realized the seriousness of what happened and he cried on his bed for about 30 minutes saying, "I almost killed my family!". He definitely felt the impact of what happened. Elijah said, "I'm NEVER going to play with fire!". All of the kids saw how big the fire was when we got out there before it was put out. Gabe spent the rest of the day spraying the bricks to cool them down, then the next day he got to scrub as much of the soot off the house as possible. He didn't like it, but it was a good part of the lesson.

The other part that I talked to the kids about was how this situation was an answer to our prayers. I pointed that we ALWAYS pray for guardian angels to be surrounding our home protecting us. I told them that our two angels, who listened to the spirit to come help us, was an answer to that prayer. They listened to the spirit when I didn't. I probably felt the spirit nag me about it when it was small enough to take care of, but since I didn't listen the angels around our home went and got someone else to help. They saved us! What an amazing answer to prayer that was.

I love you guys. Even when you make those childhood mistakes that are hard and serious - the price tag of your mistakes is going to keep going up, but I love you the same and NO MATTER WHAT.

And - don't play with fire!!

Love,

Your Mom