Maui fires: A landscape of loss and one symbol of hope

By Ron Hutchcraft, Op-ed contributor Thursday, August 17, 2023

Words fail. Even words like "apocalyptic" ... "war zone" ... "total devastation."

The racing flames in the iconic Lahaina community of Maui simply consumed everything in its path, often leaving only ashes where minutes before a building had stood. 

The charming tourist magnet and idyllic community has suddenly become a desolate landscape of loss. Except for the tree. The 150-year-old banyan tree soars to 60 feet and covers an entire city block. It is badly charred and its future is uncertain, but today it stands as one surviving symbol of hope amidst all the sadness and ruin.

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"Everything is gone," one survivor said. But the tree is still standing.

I realized as I prayed for Lahaina that this is just how I felt on that May day when my "everything" was gone – my Karen, the love of my life since I was 19 years old. The only person on earth who had done my whole adult life with me. Gone. Suddenly gone.

But one thing was still standing – the Tree that you often see on necklaces and on church steeples. The cross where Jesus died a death that has changed millions of lives ever since. That cross became an anchor on that darkest day of my life.

I know my days of life-altering loss certainly aren't unique to me. At some time or another, the fire comes for all of us.  Maybe in the form of a devastating diagnosis, disaster, desertion, or divorce that leaves us emotionally homeless.  And, of course, the ultimate hope robber: death.

I've been to a lot of funerals but the one that I will never forget was on a Native American reservation. Danny's brother (name changed for privacy) had died suddenly and tragically, and he was broken. It was after we all had passed by the open grave and thrown in our handful of dirt that I saw the scene I can replay in my mind even now.  As people were leaving, there was Danny at the head of his brother's grave, hugging as he wept the rugged wooden cross that had been placed there. It seemed the cross was literally holding him up that day. The "fire" had burned through his life and it must have seemed as if everything was gone.  But the Tree was still standing. As it has for millions of broken people for 2,000 years; people like me.

When it feels like I've lost everything, I'm still "safely home" in the unlosable love of God. I have an anchor relationship that is fireproof ... disaster-proof ... death-proof! "Nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:39). That is God's personal guarantee to those who belong to Him.

I did not stand alone as I stood by Karen's fresh grave. My Jesus was there.

Lahaina's banyan tree has an uncertain future. God's "safely home" Tree is there forever. Indestructible.

That Tree says I am forever loved. Forever forgiven. Forever safe. Never alone.

No fire can take that away.