Eighteen Years later

Here are some thoughts that I shared with students today in my work as a campus pastor:

Today is the eighteenth anniversary of 9/11.

Some of you were just infants,

Some of you weren’t even born yet.

I remember that day like it was yesterday.

I was living here at the time, but I grew up in New York.

I remember watching the Twin Towers being built in the seventies.

I’ve visited those buildings many times.

I have family and friends who were involved one way or another that day. Many of them also remember it as if it were yesterday.

I still find it hard to believe it ever happened.

Please pray for the families of the victims, the survivors, some of whom still suffer the after effects,  and those who were responsible for the tragedy.

As a memory, 9/11 is in danger of fading. Many students I’ve spoken to in recent years either fail to understand the magnitude of the event or claim that we brought this on ourselves.

Those thoughts are missing one very valuable point: the loss and waste of lives that were created by God.

Thousands of pieces of God’s image were destroyed or damaged in just moments.

How should we, as followers of Christ and lovers of God eighteen years later, reflect on this?

My thoughts? Perhaps, in the memory of 9/11, the meek should claim their inheritance.