“And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not loose heart.”
~Galatians 6:9
My not-so-little brother has been interested in Firefighters, firetrucks, and sirens pretty much his entire life. So, about a year ago he joined a local program that enables high school kids to be able to learn some of the skills and experiences they’ll need as a Firefighter.
One of the things that he gets to do is run with a crew. In our area a part time firefighter runs every 6th day. So, he got assigned to crew in January and shadows/helps them out when they get a call. Thankfully most of these calls are just transporting someone to the hospital or investigating a commercial fire alarm. Usually he’s pretty bored because they haven’t gotten a single call.
But that all changed last week. He got to respond to his 1st fire call. An apartment building near where Mom and Daddy used to live when they first got married caught fire. We have a scanner in our living room that we listen to when Bradley runs so that we know what’s going on or where he’s at. The call went out about 8:00 PM. Shortly thereafter there were several calls to surrounding departments for mutual aid.
So, we knew that this wasn’t going to be one of those really short calls; they were going to be there a while. We finished eating dinner and then decided to go get a 50¢ frosty from Wendy’s while we drove around and investigated. We ended up parking behind the apartment building in this housing development and looking at the scene between a couple of houses. About 9:30 PM they were still spraying water on the fire from above and they started breaking all the windows (everyone was out of the building and no one was injured and as per the Explorer rules Bradley is required to remain OUTSIDE the building while it’s on fire. Thankfully). We ended up hanging out and just watching the scene for close to an hour and then headed home.
There were several things that I learned that night. One of them being that Firefighters don’t just put on a cool uniform and go rescue people. Although that is one of the things that they do there’s a lot more to it. Once the fire was out they had to stay on scene and make sure that the fire was really out and then clean up all the hoses and tools before they could head back to the station. They got back about midnight. But their work wasn’t done just yet…
Even after putting out a huge fire in 75° heat in full turn out gear (imagine wearing your heaviest winter coat, boots, hat, gloves and pants standing next to a roaring bonfire…). They had to go back to the station and finish cleaning all of the gear. The hoses had to be washed and dried as did the truck…
Because Bradley is still in school he was able to head home early, but He still didn’t get home until about 12:30. He thought that the rest of the guys probably didn’t get done until at least 2 or 3 AM. They’d only get a couple hours of sleep before having to be up and at ’em because the next crew took over at 7.
As if their night couldn’t get any longer just when Bradley got home they got another Medic call…
“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
~Matthew 11:28-30
I learned something else that night. That sometimes when you just want to be D-O-N-E, when it feels like all your strength is gone and your worn and weary you can press on. You can keep going and keep doing what God gave you to do because you know that God led you to where you are. You can lean into Him even when it’s hard and prickly because you know that He’s got this.
Just as the firefighters persevered fighting the fire, cleaning up and then responding to another call we should preserve in our Christian lives. It’s not easy but God’s strength is there to help us through each step of the journey.
Until next time,
Bailey Sue