Purple Mountains Majesty

All day today the words from America the Beautiful have been running through my head.  I'm a Denver girl.  I blame my inability to find any location on Earth, outside of Colorado, on the lack of Rocky Mountains to the West.  They anchor the landscape and my own internal compass.  I laugh and say I am 'geographically challenged' without Pikes Peak somewhere in the distance to help me find my way.

And today my heart is heavy and my thoughts are muddled because:

This...

                                                                 

looks like this right now.

                                                  
My sister and her family were evacuated yesterday along with 32,000 others.  The Flying W Ranch has burned to the ground and several of our friends simply don't know if their homes are still standing.   My heart goes out to them.  And to all the other Coloradans facing the same terrible situation in the 10 active fires currently burning in our beautiful state.  I cannot imagine what they are going through.  I pray for their safety, the safety of their homes, wildlife and the firefighters who have gathered from all over to help.

But I am reminded, in the midst of all of this, of the one thing I tell my kids over and over again.  "Good will out."  Kindness matters.  Right now, it's all some people have.  The Red Cross and the emergency preparedness teams have all commented on it.  That as many as a third of the inquiries coming in are not requests for assistance - but rather, offers of help.  People opening their homes, barns and livestock pens to displaced strangers, their pets and horses.  They have been inundated with donations of food, clothing, money and time.

In the midst of some of the worst Mother Nature has to offer, fundamental human nature is a wonderful thing isn't it?