Rekindled

“I’m not sure I’m supposed to even be writing.”

I looked at my friend. Even in the first light of dawn, her downcast countenance was obvious. “I feel the same.”

We were starting day three of a writer’s conference, and to say we’d had a lot of information thrown at us was an understatement. On more than one occasion, I’d heard the expression from attendees—and had even used it myself—that the information overload was “like drinking from a fire hose.” Even though I’d said it, I knew the statement was a hyperbole; you can’t actually drink from a fire hose…not safely anyway.

While I’ve never attempted drinking from a fire hose, I have been on the holding end of one and the amount of pressurized water that comes through it can take you for a ride. Decades ago, when I joined the volunteer fire department, all new members, whether pursuing EMT or firefighter certification, had to go through “rookie” training. Along with learning how to ladder and repel from a roof, deploy and repack a hose bed, and connect a hose to a fire hydrant, we learned to “flow water.”

Back then, even in full bunker gear, I weighed a little over 100-pounds. Just before my rotation on the fire hose, the training chief stressed—again—to not let go of the charged firehose. A flailing nozzle or hose end could cause serious injury. He punctuated his statement with a graphic story of a firefighter losing all his front teeth. My heart raced; I was half terrified and half excited…but wholly determined that I was not going to let go of the hose.

The training chief put another rookie on the nozzle and positioned me as backup. The engineer charged the line and the hose stiffened as it filled with pressurized water. The training officer signaled the rookie operating the nozzle to “open it up.” She did and 100psi shot through the hose. And that’s the moment she bailed—which gave me the wildest ride of my life—before I was tackled by seasoned firefighters. In the short period of time it took for the firefighters to tackle me, wrangle the hose and close the nozzle, the water stream drenched two fire chiefs, three fire trucks, an aerial truck, an ambulance, and numerous crew members.

Thankfully, the training chief checked the box for me completing the water flow training, noting I’d followed his orders and hadn’t let go of the hose. I promised him I was sticking with my decision to work on the ambulance and leaving the firefighting duties to the professionals. My takeway from that “training” was that in the wrong hands, even a fire hose was a danger. But when the fire hose is in the right hands, there is a targeted, orchestrated, and precise attack on a fire until it’s successfully extinguished.

As I thought about my fire hose incident and processed my defeated feelings, I realized that my writing friend and I were on the receiving end of a targeted, orchestrated and precise attack by the evil one. His main goal is to lie, steal and destroy—and he’d successfully soaked us with discouragement, and attempted to drench our fire—to extinquish our passion—and keep us from writing our stories.

I looked at my friend again. “You have a story to tell. A good story that others need to hear. I, too, have a story to tell. We both sense that God has called us to write.”

She nodded. “We just need to remember why we’re writing. We’re telling our stories for God’s glory.”

And just like that—as the rising sun painted the sky hues of fiery orange—embers that had been doused with discouragement were rekindled by hope and purpose.

We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy. - 1 John 1:4