Georgia's Story: I Will Dance on the Ashes of This Fire

When singer, worship leader and songwriter, Georgia Hasslacher, penned the following words, she never dreamed they would be more than metaphorical:

I will rise up, I will sing

I will dance on the ashes of this fire.

I will rise up, I will sing.

I will dance on the ashes from this fire,

I will bring an offering.

But on June 29, 2012, Georgia woke in a fog to the sound of her cat screaming. She crawled out of bed, her legs not wanting to carry her to her bedroom door. Suffering from what she would later call hepactic hypoxia, the fresh oxygen gave her brain the ability to hear as she stepped into the hall.

Her auditory senses were immediately overloaded with the blaring of every fire alarm in the house.

Did John (her son) burn the toast? Was there a small fire somewhere? Did the system malfunction?

Looking to her left, Georgia noticed a small amount of smoke. Turning right, she saw three-foot flames shooting around a door. Passing a large window, she realized the garage and most of the house were already totally engulfed.

"John! John!" Georgia screamed.

Her seventeen-year-old son stumbled, barefoot, to the kitchen in pajama pants.

"Our house is on fire,"

Georgia said. "It isn't a small fire, John. It's a we-have-to-get-our-pictures- and-animals fire."

Georgia made a move to grab the pets and photo albums.

John blocked her.

She tried to get around him.

He blocked her again.

"It was if it were Super Bowl Sunday," Georgia said, "and I was the football."

Her son's eyes totally focused on her.  From her son, she heard a voice that she never heard before - above the roar of the fire, the explosions coming from the garage, the alarms, and the screams of the cat. In the seventeen years she had known John, she thought she had heard every sound her son was capable of making - giggles, laughter, anger, frustration, cries - but in that moment she heard a voice of authority and power from her boy."

I refuse to allow you to die in this place on this day!" John declared.

Unsure how it happened, Georgia found herself outside, the arms of her son around her, holding her close, still standing between her and everything she wanted to save. John leaned in to peer into her eyes, and Georgia noticed his tears.

"Mom, I tell you the truth. If you will not let me hold you right here, I'm going to have to hit you so hard, it will knock you unconscious."

Georgia knew then, that if love demanded that of him, as painful as it was, he would do it.

They turned toward the surreal image of everything they owned burning. Then ... the roof collapsed.

"Even if I make my bed in hell," the psalmist says in Psalm 139, "You are there."

"Believe me, I am not embellishing at all when I say that is true," Georgia said, describing the details of that day more than two years later, an event she still cannot recount without tears, tears not so much of all that was lost, which was painful, but tears for the rescuing power of God. When the flames of hell were all around and she was utterly helpless, God was there.

"I was unconscious, so unconscious I couldn't even hear the alarms. I couldn't save myself." 

"I've always had a false sense of being completely responsible or hyper vigilant for my own life and safety and the lives and safety of those I love. The fire showed me that only God has complete control over the number of our days."

"I wasn't reading my Bible. I wasn't praying. I wasn't doing the right things or saying the right things. I was unconscious and God saved me. Not only that, through the example of my son, God showed me what His love for me is truly like."

"John didn't rescue one thing from the fire for himself. He was totally focused on me. He only wanted me."

Georgia went on to describe the courage that has given her - to realize the safety of her family is not dependent on her. She has told the story again and again to countless people. She wants people to know: "You are not crying out to an unmerciful God in your crisis, whatever that crisis is, but you are crying out to a God who loves you."

and

"You are eternal. There's more to life than gathering stuff and trying to look twenty-seven forever. We are eternal beings with an eternal God who is ever-present with us in trouble."

Georgia mentioned a courage-giving, hope-breathing verse:

He has rescued us from a terrible death, and he will continue to rescue us. Yes, he is the one on whom we have set our hope, and he will rescue us again. (2 Corinthians 1:10 ISV)

He will rescue us again. Georgia has a tangible sign of that rescuing love.

On a wall in her new home, Georgia has placed one of the few items that survived the fire - a cross. The fire burned so hot, that the cross melted an impression into the drywall, yet somehow survived.

Every day Georgia sees a reminder of the rescuing love of Jesus who rescued her from one burning hell and will one day rescue her again.