Anyone who was alive on that day can still remember exactly where they were when they heard. I knelt by the coffee table in our living room. Mom was on the phone, and I could tell that something was terribly wrong. She turned on the TV, and the screen filled with smoke and rubble. In the foreground, a frantic blond woman sobbed into her cell phone. I was young, and could not possibly have a full grasp of the situation, but I understood quite a lot. Since I was the kind of child who got upset when a character in a book scraped their knee, this kind of devastation and horror was overwhelming. I will never forget the paralyzing horror I felt on September eleventh, 2001.
Several years later, on the very same day, my baby sister entered the world. I thought that 9/11 was an unfortunate date of birth. Even though she was not alive to see the tragedy happen, people would forever associate her birthday with that horrible day. Now, I see things differently. While 9/11 still is not an ideal birth date, I see in it the grace of God. Tragedy happened, but God carries us through. Life moves on. Our world is filled with death and destruction, but there is also life. The sun still shines, the world still turns, and new life is born. Beauty and life cannot lessen the horror, but they show that there is hope. Our world is broken, but still full of common grace. God is good and faithful, sustaining us in our weakness and displaying his glory in our brokenness. Pain is real and cannot be denied, but neither can we deny the grace of the God who redeems us in the midst of it.
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