This past week we once again saw the tragedy of wildfires taking out entire neighborhoods in Southern California.  This time the fires were confined to Malibu.  As with the series of fires in and around Los Angeles and San Diego a month or so ago, in many cases families had only minutes to evacuate their homes as the fires bore down on their area.

Reading the accounts of the the Malibu fire, I couldn’t help but think about what I would do if faced with this situation.  If I got a knock on my front door and was told we had to be out of the house in ten minutes, what would I choose to save?

I don’t consider myself to be overly materialistic, but over the years we’ve accumulated some nice stuff.  Most of it is purely sentimental in value.  Lots and lots of photographs and all of the memories that go along with them, especially our wedding photos.  My collection of guitars. Paintings, etchings, charcoal and watercolors done by my father over the course of twenty years.  My 1960s vintage Lionel train set. Toys, papers, coloring book pages and other memorabilia of our children’s childhoods.  Letters, cards and notes from friends and church members sent to us over the years.  Hundreds of books.

At the end of the day, it’s all junk on the way to the junk yard.  But it is our junk and, to be honest, I’m kind of attached to it.

But if I only had ten minutes to get out, I would spend all of that time making sure my wife, my children and our pets were out safely.  Stuff we can replace, or we can live without it.  You can’t replace or live without your family.

Noted psychologist and motivational speaker Denis Waitley tells the story of losing his house to a fast moving fire.  In his case, they were awakened in the middle of the night and had only minutes to get out of their house.  They stood in the yard and watched their house go up in flames in a matter of minutes.  They had only the clothes on their backs.  They lost everything else, including the cars in the garage.

Waitley says he first was grieving over the stuff that he lost.  Then he realized he was standing there with his wife and children.  He realized that everything that he truly valued in his life were the people standing there safe with him. 

“Best fire I ever had,” Waitley said.

So what would you save from a fire if you only had ten minutes to get out?