This morning I posted my weekly blog “A Christian and an American”. After time in God’s Word, praying and some coffee I checked the news.
The Bucs won, the President was angry with some citizens, and we are 1 Day away from a day of remembrance of a terrorist attack on our country and our freedoms. September 11, 2001 truly changed everything then and now in the United States.
Twenty years ago the Bucs had just won in Dallas, the President then was readying a trip to Florida to read to children in a school, and terrorist were finalizing their attack. No TSA lines and we went about life without really any fear.
Tears came to my eyes as I saw the images of that fateful day 20 years ago. Songs came to mind that were written later such as Alan Jackson “Where were you when the world stopped turning”. The emotion of that day 20 years later is as real but certainly different.
I was in my study working on a message when Pat, my Executive Assistant, knocked on the door. She said she heard that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center Towers. I turned on the television in my study and we sat in silence watching the events of that day as they unfolded. It was as if we watching something that was not real, but in fact it was happening before our eyes.
As I consider this day in which we live, I also consider the history of where we came from in order to get here. Twenty years ago it was Tuesday and was a beautiful and seasonal day where I lived and it was in New York that day, too. Today it seems to be much the same as then.
There was no war 20 years ago today in Afghanistan because until the next day there was no need for one. Actually we stopped fighting that war in 2015. There is no war there now because we left in the still of night and then left our countrymen and others there. The Taliban was in control of Afghanistan and now 20 years later they are again. Now though, they also have over $80 billion dollars worth of military hardware. Sadly, it is hard to see a difference today from 20 years ago in relation to Afghanistan. I know there are but it is difficult to see and understand unless we look deeply into the realities.
Of course, in the last 20 years there has not been another terrorist attack and for that we can find comfort. However, the conditions that propagated what was 9/11, now are anew in Afghanistan. Many believe even more so and certainly coming in a different manner.
In the last lines of Allen Jackson’s song he wrote-
Did you go to a church and hold hands with some strangers
Did you stand in line and give your own blood?
Did you just stay home and cling tight to your family
Thank God you had somebody to love?
And the greatest is love.
And the greatest is love.
Where were you when the world stopped turning on that September day?
I hope you will go to church this Sunday. Hold the hands of a stranger. Makes plans to give blood and stay home to hold your family, thanking God you have someone to love. Because of all the gifts He has given us the greatest is love.
God bless these United States.
In God’s Grace,
Elbert Nasworthy
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