I’ve Seen Fire and I’ve Seen Rain

Field Note: A reflection on fire poppies, floodwaters, and the deliberate grace that finds us in the wreckage.

Fire and rain can both leave scars. Not just scrapes or singes, but the kind that linger and shape you long after the heat or the downpour has passed.

I've seen fire and I've seen rain

I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end

I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend

But I always thought that I'd see you again.

Lines I've heard a thousand times, but something about that stretch of travel, the terrain, the conversations. I heard it differently this time; it landed in a new key.

Out there, wildfires aren't rare. They're just… life. People pack go-bags like we might pack a raincoat, casual and prepared. They talk about evacuation zones with a strange calm. It's not that they aren't aware of the danger; they know how to live alongside it. There's a steady sort of resilience in that rhythm.

I grew up in Tornado Alley. True, you get used to living with hazards. You make peace with sirens and shelter. You learn what matters most when time is short. That kind of life sharpens your priorities, even as it frays your nerves.

Fire has carried a gravitas with me for a while. Years ago, a minor apartment fire left a major impression. The blaze was contained. But the smell of acrid smoke clinging to the curtains for weeks, the uncertainty, the realisation of how quickly everything can shift? That stayed. And of course, we all learn young that fire isn't a playmate.

You play with fire, you’re going to get burned.

The old saying isn't just about heat; it's about boundaries and consequences. Reverence.

Those tangled thoughts and memories bubbled up again in Malibu. I had to detour through the canyon since the Pacific Coast Highway was closed to all but residents. Driving those quiet, winding roads, the air thick with the scent of dry earth and something faintly floral struggling to emerge, I noticed something blooming in the blackened hills. A shock of colour peeking out from the charcoal. It stopped me.

Because here's the truth: we all walk through wildfires. Some blaze on the surface. Heartbreak, redundancy, fractured relationships, diagnoses we never saw coming. Others burn lower, quieter: the ache of regret, the weight of comparison, the slow erosion of confidence or faith.

And those fires? They level things.

They upend the familiar. They leave scorched plans and singed hopes. Sometimes they don't leave space to rebuild the way we'd imagined. But somehow, beauty finds its way through the ash.

Like in real emergencies, our personal wildfires often draw responders:

Friends who sit with us in silence.

Mentors who check in when we're tempted to disappear.

Counsellors who help us name the things we've buried.

People who become safe places.

They show up.

They stay.

And they remind us that we aren't alone in the smoke and aftermath.

And then: the fire poppies.

Have you ever seen them? These vibrant, delicate blooms only emerge after a wildfire. They lie dormant in the soil, waiting, needing heat to awaken. They don't bloom in calm, only in the chaos that comes after flame.

There's something sacred in that. Something about how devastation can stir dormant seeds. Strength we hadn’t tapped into. Clarity we didn’t know we needed. And purpose that finally gets our attention.

And while the bloom itself may be brief, the seeds remain. Tucked deep into the earth. Waiting for the right conditions. They remind us that healing doesn't always look like going back; it often looks like becoming something new, pushing a fragile shoot through hardened ground.

“See, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland,”

Isaiah 43:19.

And then… there's rain.

When I landed back in Brisbane, the skies were grey and untidy, the air already humming with the low thrum of rain drawing near. The kind of weather that soaks through everything. Plans. Energy. Even optimism. I thought of the floods earlier this year and the muddy water creeping up to doorsteps I'd walked past countless times.

Not fire, but another type of force. One that doesn't burn; it seeps. Quiet. Persistent.

Rain doesn't ignite but infiltrates spaces, cracks, and routines. It disturbs slowly, until suddenly, nothing looks quite the same. It rearranges days. It rewrites calendars. It makes us wait.

But it also does its work.

Rain softens the soil.

It clears the dust and cools the burn.

It restores what's been parched.

And it makes space. Space for breath, for roots, for rest.

"As surely as the sun rises, he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth," Hosea 6:3b.

Both fire and rain disrupt. Both undo. But both can prepare the ground for something new to grow.

Life doesn't move in tidy lines. It surges and stills. It scorches and saturates. The invitation is not to wish the fire or flood away. It is to trust that grace has a strange, beautiful habit of showing up in the wreckage.

The hard part? Trusting while the horizon's still burning or the skies are still grey.

Perhaps the truest act of courage is learning to see the first hint of dawn even when the embers still glow and the rain continues to fall.