Tomorrow will mark 10 years since the attacks of September 11th, 2001.
I can recall being home preparing to return to college. I was watching the morning news (Good Morning America with Charlie Gibson) when they suddenly stopped mid sentence and stated that a jet had hit one of the World Trade Center towers. Everyone on the screen seemed confused as to how an accident like this might happen until moments later, on live TV, when we saw the second tower struck by a second jet. It was that moment that I realized that this was not an accident and began to have a sense that our world was changing.
On that day, 19 hijackers killed 2,977 people at the WTC, the Pentagon, and on Flight 93. We were all impressed by the heroic and sacrificial efforts of the first responders.
I suspect that you remember exactly where you were when you first found out that all of those precious lives were wiped out, too. I would encourage you to take some time to remember those moments, pray for the victims’ families, and pray for those who are still fighting in the ongoing conflicts.
Never forget.
I was in Bible College, waiting for class to start. One of my classmates came in, carrying on about the jets flying into the towers and how scared she was. She asked me if I was frightened that something like that might happen to us in Indianapolis. I wanted to slap some sense into her, but instead I asked her if she thought that the attack had taken God by surprise. When she stopped babbling long enough to think over her reply, I reminded her that God is sovereign, and if He decides that it is time for a person to die, there’s nothing they can do about it. “Safe” is not a Christian concept–but fortunately this world isn’t our home. We will never be safe until Christ returns.
I was in college too. I was actually flying that morning working on my Flight Instructor’s certificate. We were at a airport that didn’t normally get much traffic so I could practice landings from the other side of the airplane. We started to hear other airplanes diverting to places, including a business turboprop that wouldn’t normally come there. It was weird but didn’t at first seem to apply to us since we weren’t talking to air traffic control, but we decided to go back to our home airport. Just as we we getting ready to land the word went out on our normal frequency to return back to the airport immediately. We got back inside to a TV just as the first tower fell. The rest of the day was pretty surreal. It was strange the couple of nights after without anything flying in the night sky. We actually didn’t get to fly for another week or more. One of the shocking things was to think that they had used some of the same training we were going through against the nation.
I’ve been sending some prayers out and shedding a few tears lately, especially after listening to Michael Bane’s podcast this week.
On a completely unrelated note and happier, the 3 of us should get together sometime…
…but let’s save that for another post.