9-11

Just contemplating this sorrowful yet somehow inspiring anniversary that we remember tomorrow. Sept. 11. Who does not remember that day ten years ago? It is emblazoned in my memory--my husband calling to me that a plane had hit the World Trade Tower. As I prepared to go to Bible study with our youngest child, a baby only a few months old, I turned on the Today show. And with the rest of the nation, I watched in horror as a second plane sliced into the second building, and the realization hit that our country was under attack.

What a different nation we were then. Think of all the precious lives snuffed out in a few short minutes. Those horrific images of fire and explosions and soot and debris and falling bodies. The desperate calls to 911 and the brave, whispered "I love you" and goodbyes by phones and voice mails. So much pain and fear and confusion and destruction and death.

And courage. None of us will ever forget the images of those brave firefighters running into those burning buildings. While others raced out, they raced in. Many had written their names with indelible markers on their arms before they went in... because they knew. They knew the strong likelihood they might not be coming out alive. They saw the horror and understood the enormous risk. And they rushed in anyway. While others groped their way down the stairs, those firefighters, with enormously heavy packs on their backs, ran up the stairs towards the raging fire.

Thank You Lord for such men. Thank You for their example of self-sacrifice and bravery in the face of such brutality and horror and seeming hopelessness. Might their example inspire us. Warren Wiersbe once wrote that we read biographies not so much for imitation as for inspiration. God may not call upon us to imitate their sacrificial deaths. But He calls on us to be inspired to die to ourselves and live for Him. It's time to stop complaining and moping about what we lack and start choosing to be grateful for all we have. It's time to stop wringing our hands, frozen with fear about an uncertain future, and start taking action and working based on what we know and trusting God with the rest. It's time to look to the heroes of 9-11 and be inspired to live each day loving, trusting, thanking, serving, and all to the glory of God.

So, to all who lost their lives that terrible day, you are not forgotten. To those who ran into the burning buildings, you inspire us all and make us want to be better and do better and live better and love better. It's time to stop talking about it and just start doing it--let's roll. And To God be the glory.