The fire started in the attic wiring in the middle of the night, silently spreading through the insulation until the smoke alarms finally screamed into life. My wife and I had barely enough time to grab our robes and run out the back door before the roof began to collapse. We stood barefoot on the cold sidewalk, watching the fire department hose down the shell of the house where we had raised our children. It is a uniquely hollow, devastating feeling to watch your entire life turn into smoke and ash. In those agonizing minutes, I mentally cataloged everything that was being destroyed: the photo albums from the 80s, the antique furniture inherited from my parents, and the children’s growth chart marked on the doorframe. By the time the sun came up, the house was a smoldering, blackened ruin.
The firefighters told us it was a total loss, but allowed us to walk through the wreckage safely to see if anything non-flammable, like jewelry or a safe, had survived. The smell of wet ash and melted plastic was overpowering as we crunched over the debris of our living room. I wasn't expecting to find anything. The heat had been so intense that the glass in the windows had melted into puddles, and steel appliances were warped and twisted. But as I looked toward the corner where my favorite reading chair used to be, I saw a rectangle of black sitting on top of a pile of white ash. I walked over and realized it was my grandmother’s old leather Bible. The nightstand it had been resting on was completely gone - vaporized by the fire - and the lamp that sat next to it was a twisted lump of metal. But the Bible was there.
The leather cover was charred and curled at the edges, and it smelled like smoke, but it was intact. With shaking hands, I picked it up and opened it. The pages were white, crisp, and completely readable. I stood there in the ruins of my home, reading a Psalm, tears streaming down my face. Skeptics might say that the dense paper of a closed book doesn't burn easily because oxygen can't get to the pages, and that might be scientifically true. But to me, in that moment of total loss, it was a supernatural sign. It was a tangible reminder that while everything material in this world - houses, money, heirlooms - can be taken away in an instant, the Word of God stands firm forever. It was the only thing we took from the house, but it was enough to give us the strength to start rebuilding.
