Today I recall Ground Zero and NYC and Pennsylvania and The Pentagon and all the pain. At the same time I try to remember HIS promises to us.
Anything I might offer on 9/11 or Syria or other tragedies seems trite and insufficient. So this Blue Jean Girl just lifts up a song and a few words from my heart.
I am heartbroken for the loss and the soul-wounds and the trauma. I cannot comprehend how those in the middle of it coped. How emotions must have flipped upside down and backwards trying to take it in. On that plane. In that office. In the rubble. I pray for those gone, those devastated, and those living in the aftermath of the silence that pierced this day. And for all the fear that still finds residence in our country, our world, and in us.
Maybe listen to this song while you read these few words, and remember 9/11 in whatever form tragedy grips your heart today?:
Those who trust in the LORD will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31
I was not in one of the twin towers or on a plane or walking the streets of NYC on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. But the images that assaulted me brought fear rising to my throat, stinging tears to my eyes, and formed whispered prayers to my lips. Tighter hugs to my children.
As if in slow motion…. Planes crash and shards fly. People jump and flames engulf, ashes scatter and we are all silent. Staring at our television screens in unified, unceasing prayer. My children are 1 and 3 years old. I am dropping them off at Mother’s Day Out when whispers circulate about the planes. We huddle in the gathering area at the church and watch, unbelieving, confused. Expectation becomes an emergency. Calls are made to loved ones. Then the collapse. Catastrophe. Regular, everyday people rise to become rescuers and the rescued. Terror erases our sense of security. As the day and the weeks that follow unfold, stories of heroes and lives lost and miraculous moments are everywhere.
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Despite all the lingering fear, 9/11 confirmed something in me. In all of us, I think: In the middle of any colossal, confusing crisis~God is unmistakably there. Do you remember with me the countless miracles in the mayhem?
So much horrific damage was done. But if evil was trying to overcome the human spirit…..it didn’t come close. Evil cannot extinguish heroes or hope.
Because where pain is concerned, I have to believe that God is not afraid or surprised. He has seen spattered blood before. He reclaims it. We don’t have to search far to see the hope and the heroes. “““““` The song “Angel Armies” comforts me in the shadow of 9/11. And in the shadows of all the evil that tries to permeate this world.
Let’s not forget 9/11. And let’s not forget we have angel armies, beloveds.
Chris Tomlin explains the scripture behind this song:
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