Hey

“Mom!” I heard from down the hall. “What?” I said from the kitchen. Pause…”I started a fire.” I ran down the hall. She was standing at the bathrooom sink with the waste paper basket in the basin.
“What happened?” I asked as I’m trying to get through the door, smoke filling the hallway. When I got in she had candles lit and the tub full of bubbles.
“I thought I had put the match out. I threw is in the garbage and it started on fire. Then I blew on it (the basket is full of tissues and other paper) to put it out.” Anyone who has built a fire knows what happened next.
I’m glad she had the sense to put water on it after that. There was no damage, just a lot of smoke and a lesson learned.
She’s in the tub now, with her candles and bubbles, the window open and the fan blowing. I am glad for mishaps like that. The ones that show you how potentially dangerous your actions can be without actually causing any real damage. I bet she never blows on a small fire to put it out again. You can’t just blow on it, cooling it so that it’s not so hot. You have to totally put it out so that it can’t come back and create a full blown disaster.
Does this parallel anything else in our lives?