Beauty from Ashes

A personal account of the Funston family pre-Christmas house fire in Foremost, Alberta.
by Craig Funston

What were you doing 36 hours before Christmas day? Like us, you were likely waiting for Christmas, admiring all those presents under the tree (ugly ties, notwithstanding), slaving in the kitchen for those coming relatives. And when the great day came, well, it was worth the wait.

That day never came for me and my family.

Because as I sit to write this article on a borrowed chair, wearing someone else’s clothes, having just finished breakfast using some stranger’s set of dishes, I keep on thinking that one day I will wake up and all that was mine will be mine again. I reach out for that familiar book, so I can sit in my familiar chair, to enjoy that special place that was, well, so familiar to me - but nothing is familiar anymore.

My wife and I, along with our nine children, lost our house to a fire on the night before Christmas Eve. The tree and its lights, all the Christmas presents and all the Christmas baking, went up in flames that night – along with everything else that a fire shows no mercy for. When twenty-three years of marriage memories and personal possessions - plus hundreds upon hundreds of theology and homeschool and reading books - are nothing more than two feet of ashes, one must take a long hard look at "where one’s treasure is." One must start asking those tough questions, such as: Where do we go from here? and What is really important? To be sure, we escaped with our family together, but there is still the angst of losing everything we called ours for the past twenty-three years. This means, among other things, that all our family photos – baby, toddler, youth and graduation – were lost. No matter how generous the insurance company may be, it can never replace these pictures.

So much for the ashes of desolation; what about the beauty of hope? There has been the beauty of the equivalent of 200 green garbage bags, full of presents, bedding, clothes, books and housewares. (In fact, we had at least seven Christmas presents for each family member on Christmas morning, a mere thirty-six hours after the tragedy!) There has been the beauty of cash and cheques, the offers for housing and the offering of prayers from a variety of churches throughout parts of Canada. And so much more.

In the days – or was it daze? – that followed, there was the beauty of phone calls after phone calls, emails after emails, each one from significant friends in the past. With such communication there came a strong sense of connection, body life and reassurance.

Strangers and friends, newlyweds and widows, young and old, present and past acquaintances – even little children who made an effort to donate part of their Christmas bounty – have all rallied to support us as a family in this valley of the shadow of death. God has used even the secular media here in southern Alberta for His honor and glory.

We have discovered that there are no denominations or distinctions when it comes to a fire. This tragedy has cut across every imaginable line. It has been a taste of heaven, but I must admit it has felt a little more like that other place sometimes.

To put it as succinctly as possible, we lost a house but not a home. We have a golden opportunity for a fresh start, to take the ashes of this devastation and build them as a basis for beauty. It begs for a fresh start at the marriage level and the family level; it allows for a new direction, or possibly a reinforcement of the old one.

God is good and He makes no mistakes. Let me finish with a Scripture that has brought my wife, Gwynne, and me great comfort: He knows the way that I take; when He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold. - Job 23.10.