Remembrance

If you're old enough to remember thirteen years back, you know what happened. Nothing particularly ominous stood out that beautiful sunny day. We settled into our routines and kicked back for another day of normal. Then it happened. You know where you were sitting. You know how time stood still and nothing in the world mattered to you except your family and your friends. Everyone wanted to know one thing: Are you safe? We knew that there were hundreds of thousands of people who would not get the answer they so desperately wished for.

No horrendous act, no matter how far-fetched, seemed impossible after that. We raced home half expecting to hear bombs. Fighter jets screamed overhead. We cried. We held each other tight… and we watched in horror as our American brothers and sisters were murdered in cold blood by terrorists.

Personally, I was sitting in my cubicle at the financial firm I worked at in Richfield, OH. I glanced up at MSNBC and saw smoke coming from one of the towers. We half joked that the pilot must be pretty bad to not see the world trade center. What our television screens couldn't capture was the magnitude of the explosion. This was no little misguided Cessna. Then the second explosion came. A second plane. We stopped joking then. Our hearts seized with fear as reports from the pentagon and flight 93 popped up on the screen.

I remember clearly that before we all raced home that morning, we gathered in conference rooms and prayed to God. We hugged and held hands and we prayed. We were brought to our most basic and desperate human form and what we did in those moments spoke more about the spirit of man than any theological debate ever could. We seek the one true God.

This morning we remember the horrendous acts carried out on our nation and we mourn the loss of thousands of lives and millions of dreams. With the spreading threat of ISIL and a president who stood before our nation last evening claiming that ISIL isn't Islamic, I honestly don't feel that our nation has much of a secure future left. Beyond this life though, my security lies in the blood of Jesus Christ. And though the journey is perilous, the ending is sure.