A Time to Remember...

It's been eleven years. Eleven years of remembering that fateful morning when nineteen men with box cutters charged the cockpits of four airplanes, forever changing the shape of our world today. On this day of remembering, family and friends gather at the Pentagon; Ground Zero; and Shanksville, Pennsylvania; reflecting on those that were lost and the day that changed our lives forever.

You remember. You remember where you were and what you were doing when you first heard the news.

For me the morning of 9-11 found myself seated at my desk in my college dorm room working on Physics homework before my first class. A friend came in to tell us of the World Trade Center tower being hit and we gathered around the radio to listen to a Chicago radio station for more news. It wasn't until I heard that a plane had hit the Pentagon and another one was headed for the White House did an odd sense of panic begin racing through my blood. I ran for the nearest phone to call my Mom who in turn was anxiously waiting word from my Dad, who was at a scheduled meeting...in the White House.

I ran to the school library where a tv had been set up, just in time to see the second plane hit the second tower. The panic turned to numbness as we watch in horror both towers crumble before our eyes. I couldn't feel anything. Couldn't even cry.

I was 700 miles from home and from my family....and no word from my Dad.

In shock students and faculty filed into the auditorium for school chapel. It was my turn to play for the service and my hands mechanically went through the task of pressing the keys. But my mind was coming out of the fog, grasping to the words of the only song we sang that morning: The Haven of Rest.

I've anchored my soul

In the Haven of Rest

I'll sail the wide seas no more.

The tempest may sweep

Or the wide stormy deep

In Jesus I'm safe evermore! 

Oh, the glorious peace of resting in Jesus...safe evermore!

Ten hours later I clutched my cell phone in shaky hands as I dialed the phone number.

Hey, Kar Bear! were three of the most wonderful words I had ever heard in my life...and then I cried. 

Today I remember. I remember the tempest and the wide stormy deep. But I remember the peace of resting in Jesus.