Gratitude and (almost) house fires

My house almost caught fire, and I had no idea of the danger
until it was over, pieced together by burn marks on a wall and
other clues around an old boiler system. I called a specialist to
look at it, and he said bluntly: he’s come to believe things
happen for a reason, and our house is still standing for a
reason. I always try to express gratitude to others and to God,
but as we come into the holiday season I thought this story was
especially worth bringing to you all.

Faith Full is a Catholic podcast hosted by Tony Ganzer. In this
short episode we hear from Fr. Robert Nixon, OSB, translator of
St. Aloysius Gonzaga’s Meditations on the Holy Angels. Plus an
excerpt from St. Thérèse of Lisieux's autobiography "The Story of
a Soul."


Visit our website: https://www.faithfullpod.com/
Donate: https://www.faithfullpod.com/support/
Subscribe on iTunes:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/faith-full-podcast/id1363835811

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/34sSHs8hHpOCi5csuTtiIv

When you know what you’re looking for the clues are obvious: burn
marks on a wall, a tripped electrical breaker, and a broken
boiler. In hindsight it’s easy. But in day-to-day life, it’s not.
About a month ago I started to run my heating system before
winter to make sure everything was working well. My house was
built in the 1950s and part of the house has radiant floor
heating. Essentially a gas-fired boiler heats up water that is
sent through pipes under the floor. When it works, it works
well!

The boiler pilot light was out when I went to run my test, so I
cleaned around the boiler and relit the light. The system kicked
on, and for about two days it seemed to work well, until it
didn’t. I played with the thermostat trying to get the system
back on but it didn’t work. Around the same time, randomly, an
electrical plug in my garage stopped working. It wasn’t clear the
problems were related…(foreshadowing).


Ultimately I decided to call the heating repair company first to
do a tune-up on the system and figure out what’s wrong. It took
just a minute to see the problem. One of the burners was off its
rack, and old fire-proofing material had crumbled. Flames had
been shooting out the back of the unit onto the wall, ultimately
hitting the wiring harness to the thermostat. “I’m not sure why
they wired it like that,” the technician told me. “But it’s good
they did.”


The melted wiring tripped the breaker and shut down the boiler,
cutting the flow of gas and stopping the fire. The malfunctioning
outlet must’ve been on an adjacent circuit or something. It’s
still sinking in, just how fortunate we are that our home wasn’t
taken in a fire, and the way the system was built in the 1950s
kept us safe.


As Catholics, this brought a few things to mind for my wife and
me: one about St. Thérèse of Lisieux and the other about angels.
I’ve been given the gift of seeing a stone moved from my path:
the fire threatened my home, the place that my family considers
safe and secure. Even if the fire had started, we have smoke
detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, fire extinguishers–all
things that would’ve likely kept us physically safe, but still
would’ve lost property.


I hope that in my journeying toward Heaven that I can use the
time, talents and experiences God has given me to show my
gratitude. It’s a gratitude that extends beyond just the holiday
season, of course, and is rooted deeply in what makes me, me. I’m
just thankful to get to keep going, with a home that’s intact.


Thank you for listening to this short episode of Faith Full.
Please share, like and subscribe if you find it worthwhile.