Today is a gift. This breath and the next should never be taken for granted. I believe that if we are willing, we can recall the shock, horror, and fear of this day 11 years ago.
I for one will not forget (nor will any of you), but I believe that many of us are weighed down with our burdens today that remembrance is not an easy task that anyone is eager to take at this time. Unemployment, homelessness, buried in debt, marriages and long time relationships disintegrating, and that is only some of it. We do not want to offend, nor will we abandon those who lost so much on that day and the years since that tragic event. What we want for our neighbors who suffer is what we want for ourselves. Hope. Something real, something that we can experience first hand and feel deep inside of us.
Since that day we have tried to wash the pain away through sports, comedy, elections, public service, and other valuable and worthwhile things. Unfortunately, none of it has resulted in what we are really looking for, that thing that we can feel, but have a difficult time trying to name. At best we come back to that elusive word; hope.
I, like everyone else, have experienced seasons of darkness in my soul. There have been times when I have railed against God. In the end there comes a point when God intervenes on my behalf and sends that which I need; peace. That peace is in the savior that I know and yet when things are going well I easily begin to rely on my own plans, strengths, and work. I forget the moments when I was in need and God provided me with comfort through Jesus. When God stirs up within me my need for a savior and that such a savior has already been given to us all I experience that which I was trying to create on my own. Hope.
I pray that what I have found will be revealed to you and that you will experience that which you crave deep within your soul.
Rev. Shawn J. Smith 