Memories from 9/11/2001

It was eleven years ago that my generation experienced something that we had never experienced before.  September 11, 2001, was a day that I will never forget as long as I live.  We started our day just as most people did.......crawling out of bed, taking kids to school, and getting ready for work.  I was at home with Max and Battle had taken the other two to school.  He called, from the truck, to alert me to what was happening.  I hurried to change the channel from Teletubbies just in time to see the second plane hit the second tower.  To this day I can still feel the panic and shock in the voices of the news anchors as they were trying to grasp what they were seeing in their own city, right outisde their windows, and calmly explain it to the American public.  Even today I can still feel the disbelief as I watched the first tower disintigrate to ash and rubble right before everyone's eyes.  I remember feeling alone in my house with only my two year old playing in the next room.  I remember standing in my bedroom watching Tower 1 fall and saying out loud, "Oh God, Oh God."  (I had always been taught not to take God's name in vain and I remember wondering for a half a second if this is what it feels like to do that.)  It wasn't.  Just like everyone else in times of desperation I uttered the only words I knew to passify my Spirit.  "Oh God."  I called my Dad to look for answers and he offered me one word, "Pray."  I realized that I had already been doing that from the moment I saw the plane hit the second tower. 

We all have our stories of how we spent that day watching the news reports as they came  in explaining how the Pentagon had been attacked and how the terrorists had hijacked another airplane to fly into the White House.  I could personally tell my kids the story over and over and over because it seems so fresh to me.  I don't know how counselors and psychologists would advise on "moving on" or "healing from that day" but something in me wants to keep the story alive.  I don't want to move on.  I want the morning shows to open their programs with videos of the morning of 9/11/2001.  Then I want interviews with the families of the victims.  I want to see Todd Beamer's wife tell the story of "Let's Roll" and see how his child,  that he never got to meet, is now honoring his father.  I want to see stories of the firefighters who walked into the buildings knowing in their hearts that they would not come out.  Then I want to see stories about how we have rebuilt our Towers to reach higher than they were before just to show the terrorists that they won't ever bring us down.  I want my boys and all the people who are too young to grasp the effects it had to see these images over and over and over again.  I want  them to be mad at what happened to our country that day.  I want them to feel the anger that we all felt and the pride that came after the anger.  It was the one time that I can remember that God was invited to all platforms.  I hate it that it took a day like 9/11 to bring our country together and to it's knees.  I don't care who you were, what religion you had, what political party you were a member of........I bet most people uttered the same words I did, "Oh God."  Most, like me, realized in that moment that evil, Satan, was still prowling and roaring and to some it appeared that he was winning.

 I remember going to church the following Sunday and the congregation sang "A Mighty Fortress is our God."  We started to sing these words...."The Prince of Darkness grim, We tremble not for him; his rage we can endure, for lo his doom is sure.  One little word shall fail him." As I sang those words I knew the song well enough to know what the next verse said.  I was ready because I knew what the "one little word was."  Then we sang the final verse, "Dost ask who this may be, Christ Jesus it is He......Lord Saboth, His name.  And age to age the same......and He has won the battle." It was then and there that I grew up in so many ways.  My faith grew stronger, my vision was clearer and I became bolder. Not only was I proud to be an American but I was proud to be a Christian American.  President Bush went on TV to talk about security and how we could feel "safe" as Americans.  We went to war, we closed down airports, we implemented Homeland Security, we did all kinds of things so everyone would feel safe.  Well on a day like today, when so many images continue flooding back, I have determined that none of these things make me feel safe.  I'm still afraid to fly, I think airport security is a pain in the behind,  and even though Osama Bin Laden is dead there are still other terrorists lurking.   My safety comes from the last verse of that hymn that we sung that Sunday morning eleven years ago..... the one little word that will always obliterate Satan.  "Christ Jesus it is He...........age to age the same.........He has won the battle."  And so today, eleven years later at 8:58 am, I am secure in my prayer, "Oh God, Oh God......THANK YOU, for coming for me Christ Jesus.  And THANK YOU for winning the battle."