9/11

Today is 9/11 and it could be just another day....just September 11, 2006 but it can never just be an ordinary day again.
I lived in the D.C. area the day that it happened. It was scary. I was booking tickets on the internet to go to the Zoe conference in Nashville and called my husband to make sure that the time worked for him. He then asked me if I had turned on the TV yet today. I said no. And he said...well, you better turn it on. I felt so foolish when I realized what I was doing while all of this was going on. I hated being alone while this was going on. We lived 15 minutes outside of D.C. and I was starting to feel panicky. My children were at school. Traffic was starting to become terrible. It was backed up for miles. Metro was shut down. Everyone was trying to get home. I went to pick up my kids from school. I needed them beside me. I didn't want more things to happen and have them at school. They needed to be beside me. I needed to see my best friend. I needed to hug her and see her children too. My husband couldn't leave school because he was a counselor and the kids there needed him.
I felt that fear for awhile. I felt it when the military planes flew over and shook our house. I felt it when my kids left for school in the morning. It took several months to feel calm again.
The next fall we had a sniper to deal with and it even came closer to home than the 9/11 tragedy. A 13 year old boy was shot at the school 4 blocks from our house and right next door to the church where my husband was the youth minister. Now I felt completely exposed. The boy was shot right by the path I walked several times a week.
When they caught the sniper and the teenage boy that was with him, they showed the car. I had seen the car in our neighborhood and hadn't realized how close I was to death.
Again, it shook me up. It took away some security that I had taken for granted.
We are all vulnerable but God is bigger.