Buried In the Broken Pieces

...there was Jesus

Detroit Lake now, four years after the 2020 Santiam Fire

“In the waiting, in the searching
In the healing and the hurting
Like a blessing buried in the broken pieces
Every minute, every moment
Where I've been and where I'm going
Even when I didn't know it or couldn't see it
There was Jesus” - Zach Brown/Dolly Parton

---

Epiphany wakes
the July rain
dawn a summer
day driving forests 
of grey branches
stoking green
amidst the Santiam
stretching her
glassy bounty
jumping bold
boulders of 
mossy diffused
golden flora
damn the river
Detroit lakeshore
once her sunken
tree stumps
naked fiery
smoke blowing
waterside paintings
of opalescent 
life buried in
broken pieces
a fisherman
ripples hope
in the distance

and

there

was

Jesus...

- Epiphany | deborah t. hewitt

Entering Detroit Dam from up the Santiam River - July 29, 2024

As seen on a stump by the Detroit lakeside

More on the Santiam Fire -

This great fire will always hold meaning to me. After months of covid isolation, and dealing with a terrible family estrangement, that shattered my soul into a thousand pieces, we were finally able to hit the road and see my parents for a few weeks in August 2020. We realized my bold, 6’2” dad looked very thin. By September he had fallen and received over 30 stitches in his hand. Not long after… they were preparing to evacuate. If you click the link for the fire, their neighborhood looked just like that for days. We returned in November knowing dad wasn’t well. Driving through this fire area was devastating to see. I couldn’t stop the tears. So many people lost everything. We were losing my brave dad too. Many homeless were never accounted for.

Four years later, now sitting in mum’s home, lots of sickness, a very unwell dog, feeling a bit trapped in all the varying personalities, including our own struggle to find grace for each other - we finally took a drive up the canyon yesterday. The words “Santiam Strong” resonated on freeway overhangs and t-shirts we wore, reminding us of the Grand Prix fire we went through as a family, at the fire’s edge, holding the line and the blessings. Our life.

There was Jesus. He’s always there in the broken pieces.

And as I write this many are fleeing fires in Oregon and California. My prayers, my heart, are with them. With their lost homes, pets, wildlife. Forests shattered. I know that Jesus wants to help them pick up the broken pieces. And I know He's got them in heaven too. He's got you and me. We don't have to walk alone. ox