Tender Mercies of the Lord

These fires are so insane. I talked to my parents about an hour ago. They were able to get to our house (YES, it is still there FOR NOW). They snuck inside and has to park around back and literally hide from the police cars. My parents are beyond exhausted and staying at a hotel in Torrey Pines. There are 5 homes from their small neighborhood that I know for sure are gone and it's still smoldering. If one little ember catches flight everything could change and their house could be toast within 5 minutes. Here's a picture of a home about 3 blocks from them. I don't think it's on fire. I think the one behind them is on fire. (the burning one belongs to someone in my home ward. The Brunson family, for those of you that are from Poway.)This one is from about a mile and a half from my parents home. It's in a gated community. (Courtney Zierke's old neighborhood... possible old street.)

This one is in Old Coach. This is about 5 minutes from my parents. This area is filled with homes like this. A lot of Padres players and Charger players live in this area. (Like L.T.) Can you imagine seeing this picture and it being YOUR house?

While there are so many houses lost I did find out that one of my childhood best friends who thought FOR SURE her parents had lost their home (the whole area was gone) found out it was ok. (Krissy Brundage) My parents were able to hike into the neighborhood from their (my parents) backyard. Everything within 10 feet of the house was burned. They think the sprinklers turned on and helped put out the fire. Their pool house was lost and their gazebo was lost but the home is ok. A few weeks ago David Brundage (their 24 year old son) was nearly killed in a car accident. After a day of not knowing if he was going to make it, he started to recover. He has short term memory loss which will take months (up to a year) to return. Diane (his mom) and David's wife are nursing him back to health from the Brundage's home. When my dad told me it was still standing I started crying. What a miracle.

Behind the Brundage's live another woman in our ward, Kathleen, who just went through a nasty divorce. She is the woman who escorted me through the temple the day Bryan and I got married. Her house is also standing. All of her trees and shrubs are burned but the house is there.

As my mother-in-law so rightly put it: tender mercies of the Lord. Our Heavenly Father knows what we can handle and he will not give us more than that.

I know we are not out of the woods yet with the fires but we've made it this far. I hope I won't have to update this blog with unhappy news. So far, so good.