Hope after fire

My beloved, very most favorite cathedral Notre Dame de Paris caught fire on Monday (April 15th). Jeff sent me a text about it around mid-morning, and I was glued to the online news updates for most of that afternoon. I didn't even check the results of the Boston Marathon until Monday night! It was an accidental fire turning 2/3 of the oak roof and most of the interior below that into black rubble. I went through a rainbow of emotions as I watched the story unfold half a world away. I felt as though one of my closest friends had just been diagnosed with a terminal illness! After fifteen hours, les pompiers had finally doused the fire and saved the iconic front bell towers and rose windows. Before the flames were even completely quenched, donors had pledged millions of euros to rebuild what was lost. I have so many thoughts and feelings about this heart-wrenching event, and every time I have tried to write about it, I have felt incoherent and inadequate to even begin. But starting where I am is all I can do, even if it's not where I want to be.


Notre Dame is my favorite cathedral, but it's not mine alone. Twelve million people visit that historic site every year. It is everybody's cathedral. It stands for so much more than religion. It is the heart of the city of lights, one of the most enduring tangible relics of a rich national history. All distances in Paris are measured from Notre Dame. Watching it burn, even via grainy third party internet video footage and patchy poorly-written press releases, was tragic. But there is still hope. Tuesday morning brought more detailed news articles with photographs of the wreckage. One picture was taken from the front door, looking across mounds of ashy rubble to the unscathed golden cross, glinting above the darkness on the opposite wall. I nearly started crying all over again at the eloquence of that scene.

There is hope in Jesus Christ. He is there for all of us, he loves each of us, and he atoned for every person, no matter what we believe. It's easy to get caught up or even burned in the messy rubble of life, but when we take time to look up and remember the Savior, he will give us hope and help to carry on.

It is beyond sad that Notre Dame was damaged by that fire, but it will be rebuilt. The beautiful Easter message reiterated by the fire is not just that the cathedral will be rebuilt, but that it will be even stronger than it was before. Even more importantly, we can be too.

2008: my first visit to Notre Dame. Somehow I can't find a picture of Jeff and me in front of the building, but we went up into the bell tower that day and saw the gargoyles up close.

2008, with a bell in Notre Dame. 

2017: our second visit. I spent two hours walking through Notre Dame that day, drinking in the stained glass and basking in the placid wisdom of those old walls.

2018: back with the buttresses for a third visit.

2018 again, at sunset. The bells started ringing shortly after this and it is one of my favorite memories of Paris. 

2019, just two months ago. 

2019