Remembering

My first thoughts this morning were, “Yea, it’s raining and I don’t have to go anywhere today. Gladys’ apartment is empty. Things have been given away or donated, the trash toted to the dumpster on strong backs—not mine. Hallelujah!”

Then I wrote today’s date in my writing-practice journal, September 11, 2014, and remembered. Suddenly I was transported out of my own little world to that terrible day. We all remember where we were and what we were doing when we heard of those barbaric acts.

So many lives lost, so many families fractured—their world and ours changed forever.

We cry out to understand such hatred and harden our resolve to stand against it. Let us not harden our hearts in the process.

I find myself praying for the victims’ families and friends, for us all. And with great difficulty, for our enemies, because the truth is, it requires an act of obedience. My human love for them is zip, zero.

O Lord, bring comfort. Grant peace. Give us hearts to forgive, even in our grief. Open minds to Your truths. Give wisdom. And lead us in the way everlasting. Amen.

Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon his name while he is near, let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

Isa. 55: 6-7

Labels: 9/11 Memorial, Forgiveness