September 11, 2011
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9/11
Sometimes I truly wonder if I could be any more selfish? Maybe my outward actions aren’t but my thoughts sure can be. Like picking out an outfit to wear to night church and unsure if I want to wear the cardigan (for lack of really knowing what it is) because it makes me look fatter. Yeah, selfishness. I know. Especially on a day like today but any day it’s still just selfish. Thoughts like 9/11, it didn’t really affect my life personally and honestly, it didn’t. I didn’t know anyone that was there. Selfishness. I’d say so.
10 years ago. I was sitting in science class when it happened. The teachers heard word, brought the students together and we watched the second tower be struck on live tv. History in the making. I was 14. I remember being shocked and unsure of how to think about the whole situation. What does this mean? Fast forward 10 years. 24 years old and still an ignorant human being. After The Score tonight, we headed over to Cannonsburg where they had a tribute to each person that died on 9/11.
Here’s a link Anna sent us which is definitely worth checking out. It’s audio from the days events. Seriously it’s worth a listen.
This may not have affected me personally but it sure did these people and all of their families. Why is this really hitting me 10 years later? Perspective maybe. Older. I’d like to say more mature but maybe not as I was having such selfish thoughts this morning. As we walked upward and read name after name and story after story, I felt a familiar feeling. A feeling of injustice – not anger. Injustice. These lives were robbed, ripped away in an act of selfishness. I reached the top and looked down at all these flags and it hit me.
Guatemala. January 2010.
I’m glad we were forced to journal during that trip. I came home and found it in my own words. I won’t write it all but a little background is this: we visited a forensic lab where bodies were being investigated, uncovered, identified from the 36 year civil war that Guatemala had. It was pretty heart wrenching to see kids clothes next to the bones of the child they think they went with.
“As I stood around the boxes, I thought of my attic and the boxes I have labeled in mine “Michael Jordan cards”, “basketball cards”, “collectibles” etc…and these boxes that went far above my head were filled with bones of human beings. That truly blows me away that people could “cut someone up” and think nothing of it — how incredibly inhumane. These boxes weren’t just anything, not a mere collection of basketball emblems but people. Unidentifiable people sitting in boxes with families out there with no closer to their death. Real people with stories, history, family. It was frustrating to take in but yet God is so present. It’s a peace which transcends all understanding that I can say that with confidence. It’s easy for me to become overwhelmed BUT God gives hope to Guatemala and all nations. “One nation under God.” Even if they took that out of the pledge allegiance, it’s no less true.”
I have grown up in a country in the midst of war, yet have felt no damaging effects. When I look at the rest of the world, I realize this is not the norm. I am truly blessed. 10 years and it’s really beginning to resonate. Better late than never.
Each flag was not just a flag. As overwhelming as it was to see so many flags lined up, it’s even more overwhelming to think that each flag represented a living soul. A person with a story, which was represented on a small card. Humbling. Seriously humbling. I may not have been personally affected by this but MANY others were. I’m not sure how many I read of people that weren’t supposed to be at the towers that day but found themselves there anyway. Interesting how a decision like that could change your life and everyone around you, not that they could have prepared for that. Not one card I came across had any mention of God, not to say none were believers but just an interesting thought. As I walked and read a card here and there my thought was this, possibly selfish again but what would others have written about me? What will be said of me when I die? Tonight Pastor talked about some fellow people in our church and how they have lived worthy lives. He spoke highly of them and I kept thinking what an amazing testimony these people have and to be half of what they are when I come to the end of my life, whether at 24 or 92 would be something.
Yet again, challenged and humbled to live selflessly in every area representing my Savior. Thoughts included. A life that brings Him glory above all else, not for what others will say about me at the end of my life but for what they will say about Him because of my life.
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