a reignited bonfire

I’m not sure of the meaning of an experience from last night, but I thought I’d share it to see if there is a meaning within it for you.

Last evening, Silas and I pitched our tent to camp in our backyard. We naturally had a bonfire for a few s’mores before we retreated to the tent to watch a movie on my iPad and fall asleep. As the bonfire appeared to be burning out, I tossed a pot full of water on it to put it out and headed to the tent for the remainder of the night.

I’m not sure what time it was, but Silas had already fallen asleep, and I heard some sticks crack outside the tent. My immediate thought was Roman had snuck out to try and scare us, which is totally the big brother thing he would do. I hopped up in the tent and looked out the front panel to see that no one was outside; the cracking stick was actually in the firepit, and the bonfire had reignited. It was burning better than when we were sitting in front of it, roasting our marshmallows.

Now, I understand how the bonfire reignited itself: some ambers were still burning, and the wind was just strong enough to stir the flame back to life. I’m not pretending that this experience was a miracle, but at the same time, I’m sure the chances of the bonfire coming back to life were low given the amount of water I dumped on it, the strong winds last night, and it was at least an hour before the flames came back.

Whenever something like this happens, I always look to see if there is a meaning behind it.

As of this morning, I’m unsure what the reignited bonfire represents, but I’m sure the meaning will eventually reveal itself.

I did have two thoughts/observations on the experience:

• It only took a small amount of ambers to keep burning to bring the bonfire back stronger than before.

• The bonfire was much stronger when it came back to life than when Silas and I tried our best to make it burn; it was better when it was left alone.

I’ll continue to look for meaning behind the bonfire’s return to life—and I’d love to hear if there is meaning in our experience for you.

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See you tomorrow and keep pursuing,

JC