Contemplating September 11th

On my way to work this morning, the radio host on 94.7 read Psalm 91 as a prayer for protection and a remembrance of September 11, 2001. That got me thinking about this day eight years ago.

I was in the quad in Bellingrath Hall, wearing a pink flowered skirt and a pink button down shirt. I put on the Today Show as I was drying my hair, and saw the World Trade Center towers up in smoke. I immediately called my dad at work, and we talked for a few minutes about what was going on. I tried to call my sister, who at the time was working in a building a few blocks away from the State Department in D.C. All cell phone lines in the D.C. area were swamped, so I couldn't get through. I later learned that she had walked over 2 hours to get home from work because all of the public transportation systems were shut down. I thought about my brother, a Marine in San Diego. Little did I know that a year and a half later, I would be at his bedside in the burn unit of a hospital in San Antonio as he recovered from an injury sustained in Baghdad.

It is sometimes hard to process how much our lives have changed due to the terrorist attacks from eight years ago. In other ways, I sometimes feel like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan do not really affect me at all. I am praying today for everyone in the world who does feel the impact of this day in a very personal way, as I was reminded this morning from Psalm 91:

1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
2 I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust."
3 Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare
and from the deadly pestilence.
4 He will cover you with his feathers,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
5 You will not fear the terror of night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,
6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
nor the plague that destroys at midday.
7 A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand,
but it will not come near you.
8 You will only observe with your eyes
and see the punishment of the wicked.
9 If you make the Most High your dwelling—
even the LORD, who is my refuge-
10 then no harm will befall you,
no disaster will come near your tent.
11 For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;
12 they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
13 You will tread upon the lion and the cobra;
you will trample the great lion and the serpent.
14 "Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
15 He will call upon me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.
16 With long life will I satisfy him
and show him my salvation.