I was driving to work on my longer-than-life commute to the Dental Office I helped manage in Buffalo Grove, listening to a country music station because I was trying my hardest to appreciate what my soon-to-be husband liked...I do like it very much now. I was ten minutes away from the office and the radio personality was freaking out over a plane hitting one of the twin towers. HE kept trying to convince the others that this was a terrorist attack and he always knew this would happen, while the other two were trying to take him down a notch and be sympathetic. I kept thinking, "Geez, this guy is super hopped-up! I am all for patriotism but he has no clue! This was an accident. Don't go crazy!"
I walked into my office and all the televisions were on to the news stations. When I saw what had happened, I started to agree with the country-station crazy...that was not a commuter plane, and how could that possibly be an accident. As I stared at the awful smoke I saw, the second plane hit...and immediately picked up the phone to try to get a hold of Eric to beg him not to go to Chicago that day. And sudden heart-ache filled my chest and tears poured as not only was I sickened by what I was seeing, I could not reach Eric. He wasn't answering his home or cell phone. I knew he wouldn't be at work yet, but I still tried that too, just in case.
I left messages, "Please don't go to Chicago, please, please don't go. The World Trade Center has been hit. Both towers. Please, don't leave!"
I ran to the bathroom, got on my knees - yes in a office bathroom that I was not in charge of cleaning - and prayed...I still cry as I think of those moments now.
The office phones were lit up with calls, cancelling appointments. Many of them crying because they had friends or family who worked there. No, I didn't know anyone personally, but I had quite a few patients who did. In between calls, I kept trying to get a hold of Eric...
I didn't get him for an hour...probably one of the longest hours of my life...and when I did get him I went back to the bathroom to get on my knees and thank God for that, too! He had slept in, his allergies were bugging him, and then had gotten in the shower to get ready for work. He had no idea what was going on. And, no, he did not go into the city that day, though we were blessed to have not been a target. Or if we were, it was stopped in time since the planes were grounded and re-routed to get people out of the sky.
I don't think I've ever been so ready to go home, to get to have dinner with Eric that night...
We were supposed to solidify our honeymoon plans to Hawaii that morning. Our travel agent informed us there was no way since we had no idea how long planes would be down and how travel would be affected. We ended up staying close to home, but it was good very many reasons. We were alive, safe, close, able to go on with our lives, and we were exhausted at the end of our wedding with everything we did, so a week at a spa was perfection.
We're coming up on our ten year anniversary...we remembered one yesterday...we sat together on the couch watching documentaries of it all last night. And we are grateful. Grateful for each other, grateful for our home, our nation, and for the brave men and women (whether in uniform or not) who did what they did September 11th to stop evil and to save as many as they could. We are thankful that we still have so many selflessly willing to serve and protect.
Remember how the churches were filled and people were more loving, kind, forgiving, and reality set in that we are not untouchable and that life can be gone in an instant. Remember when priorities seemed to be re-evaluated and kept in check? We say, "May we never forget!" But I think we are forgetting...I see it every day...lack of love for God, family and friends, choosing right from wrong, and turning to instead of from selfish deceit is seeping back in as if it doesn't matter. It does. What we do and say, how we live and act will make a difference. Not in the sense of success in this lifetime...in 100 years, none of it will matter because then, if not before, which will be for pretty much all reading this, we won't be here...what will matter is where we are with Christ and what we did for Him in light of eternity.
This is a somber entry...I feel sad writing it. But I also felt a huge burden to share. Bad can be turned to good. It's all in the choices we make and the faith we have. May God Bless you and God be with us.
Isaiah 30:19-26
"People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” Then you will desecrate your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, “Away with you!”
"He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful. In that day your cattle will graze in broad meadows. The oxen and donkeys that work the soil will eat fodder and mash, spread out with fork and shovel. In the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall, streams of water will flow on every high mountain and every lofty hill. The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the LORD binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted."
Proverbs 18:10
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