Remembering 5 Years Ago

Posted on Tuesday 12 September 2006 at 1:35 PM in A Little Bit Of Everything - Post Comment

September 10, 2001 Hubby and I celebrated our wedding anniversary at our favorite restraunt across the bridge in Canada. It was an enjoyable time and I was still excited about it the next day. I dropped Boo off at my moms, I stopped and picked up a coffee at the gas station and I headed off to work. At the time I was the secretary for our church that was housed in an old roller rink. I turned on the computer and examined the notes that were left on my desk, just like I did every day. I flipped on the little radio I had. But instead of the normal Bible teaching programs that were normally on at that time of the morning, the station was broadcasting a live feed from the national news. I tuned in just in time to hear them say that a second plane hit the World Trade Center. As I was listening, the phone began to ring from various people in our congregation who were calling to find out if I had heard and wanting to pray. The assistant pastor also came into my office to see if I had heard. He was on the phone with our senior pastor who was in Chicago at the time. He and his family were there waiting on the plane coming in from China that had their new adoptive infant daughter on board. Our senior pastor had just found out that all flights were grounded and that this plane that was already in flight would not be allowed to land. So in between listening to the broadcast of that awful event on the radio and fielding phone calls from concerned people, the assistant pastor and I were helping our senior pasor figure out what was going to happen to this plane that was supposed to land in Chicago. It turns out that the place was deverted to Canada, but it wasn't learned until hours later that the child and her guardians weren't even on that flight. They ended up on a different flight that was also diverted.

It was an exhausting day filled with all sorts of emotions. It's as vivid as if it happened yesterday. My heart still breaks at the thought of it. The shock and horror as we listened to them describe the towers crashing down. The lives lost. The prayers that were prayed. The phone calls that we made tracking down flights and trying to reasure our worried senior pastor and his family. (They were finally able to meet their new daughter after an added week of red tape.)  Even in our area of Michigan...the long, long lines of vehicles trying to cross the bridge into Canada and the increase of fighter jets making practice runs up and down the coast. 

My thoughts and prayers remain with the families who continue to grieve their loss as a result of the attack that day. I pray for the survivors and rescuers whose lives were forever changed. I pray for those who in our services who continue to defend our nation and keep it safe, and the families of the ones who gave their lives while serving. I continue to pray for our nation and world that is still full of people God loves that do not have a saving knowledge of Him. We don't know how long any of us has here on earth. Please share the Gospel message with someone you care about today.