Ten Years Ago

It has been ten years since the 9/11 attacks. TEN. YEARS. I can barely wrap my mind around that number. It has been ten years since I graduated from high school. Ten years since I started college. My daughter is nearly 1/5 of her way to age ten. This is not supposed to be a short time span. And yet when you remember something so vividly in your mind – like your false sense of security crashing to the ground and your awareness of evil in the world heightening – well, I suppose it will always seem like just a blink of an eye ago for you.

For me 9/11 occurred during the time in my life when I was standing on the precipice of adulthood, trying to figure out how I was going to bridge the gap before me without crashing into the abyss below. There I stood, a contemplative teenager who up until this point had all of these plans and dreams about how my life was going to go, and then suddenly I was forced to accept what I already knew but just didn’t want to acknowledge – my earthly time was fleeting.

Surely we all recognize the impermanence of life, but how often do we really think about it? 9/11 was a forced reminder. Life is full of loss and pain, sorrow and uncertainty…grief, suffering, heartbreak. But with all of that comes some pretty amazing things as well – compassion, healing, LOVE. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

It breaks my heart to hear all the personal accounts from those who were there to witness it firsthand. I know we all feel like we were right there with them when we think back to that day, our eyes glued to the TV as we struggled to fight back tears. But even though there are moments in life that look so horrific, what gives us hope are the moments that look like this:

I’m so thankful that this is what my life looks like ten years later and that freedom and security still exist so we can feel this way. I’m thankful for the heroes who make it possible, and I’m thankful that no matter what the world holds, our Creator holds the world in His hands.