9-11

September 11, 2021. It is twenty years since we all were assaulted by the horror of airliners full of people crashing into buildings full of people. Briefly the greatest nation the world has ever seen was brought to its knees. And then the first responders arrived, rushing into the fray as everyone else fled the death and destruction. Over 3, 000 lives were lost that terrible day. The families of those 3,000 still live with the terror and senseless loss of that tragic day.

In the aftermath, people did what people always do, when the world they knew is turned upside down. We ask, "Why?" And then we go to church and say a few prayers for a few weeks, and then we begin to forget. So, now we have a generation of college students who only know about "9-11" from history books. It kind of takes the punch out of the terror we all felt that day. I wasn't around for the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, but after 9-11, I felt I could understand more what our nation must have been feeling that day. 

So, what does all of this have to do with red cells and white cells and platelets. In some sense, I think each of us experiences his own personal Pearl Harbor Day or 9-11. For me, the diagnosis of colo-rectal cancer in 1996 was like that. Life would never be the same. Would life be at all? How would I prepare and care for my young son? Why did this happen when I was in possibly the best physical condition of my life? It was frightening beyond belief. I couldn't even trust my own body any more.

Then in June of 2021 I received the diagnosis of Acute Myeloid Leukemia. In the words of the immortal Yogi Berra, it was déjà vu all over again. How will life be different? How will I prepare and care for my wife, with whom I experienced the horror of 9-11 only weeks after our blissful wedding day? Why am I living through this now, in my mid 70s? 

There is a difference for me this time around. In 1996, I had strayed from God, I was not seeking His wisdom and the comfort of knowing his unchanging presence and faithfulness. I was going it alone quite literally. I was divorced and had no close friends that I could confide in or to whom I could pour out my heart of grief. Like little Timmy in the the 1949 Christmas film "Holiday Affair" when his life was all topsy turvy, I was "the alonest little fellow you ever saw." 

But God had not strayed from me. In fact, He was waiting for me to realize how alone I was, and He orchestrated my life in such a way that I would begin to open my heart to Him as I had once done many years before. On the day that my son Patrick was baptized, God pried my heart open the rest of the way and came back into my life like the cavalry riding in in a John Wayne movie. Only instead of John Wayne, it was Jesus Christ on the white steed. 

This time around I am not alone. I have a wonderful wife, whom God gave me only weeks after I came back to walking with Him. And of course I have Jesus Christ Who has promised never to leave me nor forsake me. Ephesians chapter five tells me "Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior." (v. 23b) Christ is the head, the guiding force, the source of wisdom, and He also has a body, the church, which is His hands and feet on the ground of life. No, I am not alone. 

I have brothers and sisters in Christ to whom I can turn for comfort and support, to whom I can pour out my grief and my fears, and my faith that in Christ I am secure. They bathe me in prayer and offers to "do anything at all" to help; so many of them that there is nothing more to do. And they continue to pour out the love of Christ on me and Jill. And then there is Jill, who is walking this walk with me and encouraging me. The more I think I need to take care of her, the more she takes care of me. 

My personal 9-11 is better than my Pearl Harbor Day was; not because it is less dreadful, but because I am not alone. My loss is palpable in many ways, but loss happens within relationships and healing happens in relationships, too. 

Pray today for those who lost relationships and much more when the twin towers toppled twenty years ago today. Pray that they would know the love of God and His people; that they would not feel that they are "the alonest little fellow you ever saw."