Bruce & Shara Repka 122 County Road 1A Hallettsville, TX 77964 (979) 732-0974 info@ponyexpressministry.com
Beauty From Ashes by Shara Bueler-Repka
I opened the front door, and piles of trash bags met me in the entryway. “They’re filled with clothes,” my mom said, pulling them out of the walkway. It was surreal to be the recipients of charity. Life isn’t supposed to be this way, I lamented.
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me… to comfort all who mourn,… to give unto them beauty for ashes,…” (Isaiah 61:1-3 KJV) Morning sun flecked the curtains as shock waves coursed from my chest to my gut. The events of the prior day, November 24, 1980, had not been a bad dream. The nightmare was real. My classmates and I smelled smoke from a distant fire and figured the mountain backcountry was burning again—like it always did during the high autumn winds. But when the smoke drifted over our school, apprehension rose. Rumors ricocheted through the hallways, “Structures are on fire at the base of the mountains!” My home stood in those foothills. My hands shook as I called my family from the school phone—no answer. I panicked and raced for my truck. Patrol cars blocked my way home, so I detoured toward my grandma’s house. Gripping the steering wheel, I drove through the smoke and screaming wind. Loose pets and livestock darted between buildings and across the road. I inched my way through the chaos, fearing the worst. As I pulled into the driveway, my family met me on the front lawn. Thank You, God. They’re alive, I breathed. But my brother’s two words said it all. “It’s gone,” he whispered. And I knew, in one afternoon, we had become homeless, losing nearly everything but the clothes on our backs. With nowhere to go, my dad, mom, brother, and I crowded into my grandma’s two-bedroom, one-bathroom house. As I drove to my grandma’s after school, I glanced down at the passenger side of my truck—everything I owned lay on the seat. 60
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M AG A Z I N E N A M E
I fumbled with the plastic tie on the nearest trash bag. Stuffed inside were blouses from the ‘60s, skirts from the ‘70s, torn jeans, and stained shirts—a virtual circus of clothes. Bag after bag revealed more of the same, with only a few of the items fit to wear. As a newly homeless 17-year-old, this felt like rock bottom. But a funny thing came over us as my mom and I numbly eyed the clothes now piled on the living room floor. A spark of God-given resolve. One by one, all articles of clothing became fair game as we picked our prize and headed for the back bedroom. Reappearing in a puffy, lime-green blouse, complete with stains on the front, I sashayed into the living room with chin in the air and hands on my hips. “How does this look?” I beamed. “I’m so in vogue, don’t you think?” “You look mah-velous, dear,” Mom chirped as she disappeared into the “dressing room.” Out, she strutted in bellbottom jeans with a tear in the pocket. With pivot turns and a flip of the wrist, she wore Christian Dior on a Saks Fifth Avenue runway. “Those jeans just become you, dahling!” I applauded. In the midst of our antics, someone knocked on the front door—a childhood friend had sent me a package. Tucked between the tissue paper were a note and a model horse. But it wasn’t just any horse, it was King, her prized possession. I embraced him and read the note: “I know your entire horse collection burned,” she wrote. “King was my favorite, and now he belongs to you.”
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