On the Writing of “ANGEL PROMISES…REMEMBERING THE YOUNGEST FIREFIGHTER” by Kathie FitzPatrick
In the dark predawn hours of on July 11th, 2001 firefighters knocked at my door. We received the news no parent ever wants to hear. "There was an entrapment at the THIRTYMILE...four firefighters were killed, one was your daughter Karen. It has been confirmed." This launched me on an intense journey that I share in my book. I knew God could have saved her. After all, I couldn't take a scissors and cut Pslams 91 out of the bible. But why did he take her instead of save her? God was up to something, and I was going to find out what it was.
The book revolves around the loss of 18 year old Karen Lee FitzPatrick, and three other remarkable and very talented young firefighters in the now historic fire tragedy, THE THIRTYMILE FIRE of 7-10-01 near the Canadian Border in the WA North Cascades, near the mountain town of Winthrop. I was about to find out that even THAT detail was prophetic. Yes, God was up to something.
In the book, I took a myriad of Karen Lee's personal writings as a teenager who stood tall for Christ on her high school campus and in her world. Her "heart attack" poems of which she was known far and wide for among the youth, were now public. We even seem to slip alongside her in her prayer times as she knelt on the little blue rug by her bed, where the tears often fell there to dampen it. She faced the same temptations and pressures all modern teens face. But she prayed, cried, sought God, and made the right decisions in her personal life. The reader walks along side her though various adventures, marching and leading parades, waltzing into proms looking like a queen, sharing bible verses with the lost at the espresso stand downtown where she worked, walking across the stage at the Sundome in Yakima, for high school graduation, and only three weeks later the reader journeys with her to a fire shelter on the side of the Chewuch River Canyon near the Thirtymile Peak where in the midst of a firestorm explosion and two sideways tornadoes, on her knees she prayed with the three other trapped firefighters, and for the safety of those on the road below who did live...and then after one last breath of superheated 2,000 air---she died.
The book is a mixture of searching thoughts from me as a mother, and
declarations of who God actually is, from a remarkable 18 year old girl who had a deep walk with God, who just happened to be my daughter. But I ask you...and God already knew the answer...who else would witness this and write so intimately about her? Even God knew my appointed task.
He showed me that we all have an appointed time, and even Karen had heard him whisper this to her "spiritual ears." ANGEL PROMISES is really about understanding more about divine providence, destiny and our "appointed time" as described in the bible.
After all these years, investigations and news stories, it is now time to bring ANGEL PROMISES to both the Christian and secular schools. The Lord seems to impress me that he wants the book in the hands of every teenager in Christian Schools, particularly. I seem to see Karen in a vision in my mind. She is smiling and tossing out seeds in front of her. Below, the seeds are blossoming and growing...with human faces in them! God all along had planned that he would allow her to "speak" forever, and plant her into many hearts so that there might be others who loved him and their souls would beautifully blossom close to him, just like Karen Lee!
