A devestating wildfire has torn the town of Gatlingburg, Tennessee to shreds. As the fires begin to subside, citizens start rebuilding. While cleaning the wreckage at Dolly Parton’s popular theme park Dollywood, 24-year-old Isaac McCord discovered a single page from the Bible that somehow survived the fire. The lone page was charred along the edges but three passages were framed among the damage. Their words gave Isaac goosebumps:
Joel 1:15
Alas for the day! The day of the LORD is at hand, as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.Joel 1:19
O LORD, to thee will I cry; for fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness and flames have burned up all the trees of the field.Joel 1:20
The beasts of the field cry also unto thee: for the rivers of water are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
Isaac told the Knoxville News Sentinel what happened after he showed the passage to co-worker Misty Carver, “We were like, ‘This is unreal; this is unbelievable. When we had both fully read it, we looked at each other – and I will never forget this moment – we both burst into tears. I was ghost-white, and we just prayed. There was nothing else to do.”
Isaac felt that this discovery changed his life and he wanted to share it with the world. “I wanted to share this message because I think that faith and hope is very powerful in a situation like this,” he said. “There are hundreds of people that are displaced and that have lost their homes. Most of these people will cling to faith.”