It was Tuesday morning and I was getting my very pregnant self and two littles ready to go to my weekly Precept Bible study class (we were studying Revelation!). At the time, I was on my church’s prayer chain. The phone rang and it was our chain’s leader. She said, “We need to activate the chain to pray for all those people in New York.” I had no idea what she was talking about. I had turned on Nick, Jr. for Hannah to watch while I got ready. I hadn’t seen any news. I turned it to Fox, saw a picture, heard it was an accident, and turned it back to “Blue.”

I went back to the phone to call the next person on the chain and went to my bedroom to watch the news on our other t.v. Well, in that time, the second plane had hit. The morning anchors were talking terrorist attack, more planes being hijacked, the Pentagon was hit…and I started to get scared. Of course, I called Hubby. After talking with him for a bit, I called the next person on the list. She was hysterical, and I don’t mean funny. I’ve never heard a woman so upset. She knew someone who worked in the Pentagon so she was very scared for that friend. As we talked, the first tower fell. I was speechless and she was screaming and crying out to God in a way I have never heard before or since. I just hung up the phone. There wasn’t anything to say.

Pregnant women can’t really prostrate themselves well, but I got as low as I could and sought the Lord. The kids were a bit upset by my crying and carrying on. We got our stuff together and went to Bible study. I was expecting a great discussion considering what was happening in New York, Washington, and PA, but the ladies didn’t want to talk about it or what it could mean. We spent some time in prayer, but there wasn’t any discussion beyond our homework.

Like everyone else, I spent the next two weeks glued to Fox News.

It’s so strange to me how everything seems to get back to normal eventually. Life goes on. We still have birthdays and weddings and parties. We still do laundry and cook meals. We still enjoy being alive. I really expected and hoped that America would be changed, in a good way, as a result of what happened that day. And we were different for a little while. It seems that now, though, we are worse off than we were before. America seems more fractured and divided than ever. Our citizens are more affluent and selfish than ever. There seems to be an overall disconnectedness and lack of love. And it makes me sad.

Revelation tells us repeatedly that people will still refuse to honor the God who would save them, even when one calamity after another comes on this world.

Today, I am praying for those whose lives are deeply connected to and were forever changed by the events of this day. I pray that God does not let us forget.