A tragic story last night of several children that were killed in a car accident head on, two adults died in this accident as well. From the moment that this horrible accident took place, kindness and generosity came forward to the situation. Miracles still too if you just look around. They're everywhere!!
Before even the first responders who were called to this accident there were civilians who were doing their best to care for those who had been injured in this accident.
Angels of God coming to the aid of others. Oftentimes we don't hear about these acts of kindness, but let me assure you, that there are more miracles of kindness and generosity that is going on in every moment of time, and we need to stop, and reflect on those miracles.
The sad part of this is that we lost several lives, young lives, lives that had potential, but we can't control what is happening at every moment. We don't know why these things happen, we don't have answers for why these things happen. But we do know one thing, that in all this God was present in that moment in the people who cared for these souls.
As fire chaplain, sometimes it just baffles my mind, when I see the kindness and the generosity that firefighters offer to the people of God who are in need. The kindness that they show, by putting everything aside for those, who art especially in need of God's mercy.
Often times as firefighters when things go wrong, and things don't work out the way they were hoping that they would, the firefighter feels a great deal of sadness within his soul. As chaplain it is a difficult time to speak to them in regards to how they are feeling inside. We all have feelings and we all have a way in which we work those feelings out.
Many people will talk about the situation, many people will walk, run, bike, exercise in order to get this sadness out of themselves. We also know that it's important to talk about the situation to someone in the group that it took place in. The ability to find a family member a good friend to talk to in situations that seem so hopeless.
Trauma in any form that it takes is real sadness. One of the things a firefighter, and it's very difficult for them because they are trained to save not to fail. But when things don't go the right way, we all need to sit back a bit and say to ourselves, did I do my best?
I would say every firefighter who goes to a situation where there is trauma, where there is a lot of emotions going on around them sometimes they feel like they've failed.
However they haven't failed in any way, they have done their best, they may not see it at the moment, but they have done their best. Fellow comrades, firefighters, family and friends need to understand that a caring ear listening to what's going on in their firefighter will help the situation immensely. Each of them are gifts from God, and they need to be able to express what is going on also in their thoughts after a tragic situation.
If a firefighter does not have any emotion about anything like this when something tragic happens, there is something wrong because this is an abnormal situation, this is not a normal way we live when we experience tragedy. It is difficult, it is hard, it is out of the ordinary and yet there are ordinary situations like that that extraordinary people come in and take over and are successful in their own way. So if a fellow firefighter is saying I didn't know what to do I I felt so lost I felt sad I felt afraid I I felt like I was falling apart, please, let them know, that this is normal.
I asked each and every one of you to not forget to just take a moment each day to pray for our firefighters our first responders. Why, because they experience this every day when they're working, they see lots of tragedy, and God bless them for their kindness and their openness as they hear the voice of God, calling them in their own way to serve in this capacity as first responder.
Finally please, remember to pray for these souls because they too, have families they need to go home to. I thank you for listening to this blog, and trying to understand what's going on here, and what's going on here, is this, I too as fire chaplain take each of these emergencies to Heart. I too go home and sit and think about each firefighter who had to witness this tragic experience and I pray for them. They are gifts from God for you, and for me. Amen. Amen.
