Just some early morning thoughts from me to you…

“The Lord is my light and my salvation—so why should I be afraid? 
The Lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger, so why should I tremble?”
Psalm 27: 1 (NLT)

“Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.”                  
II Chronicles 7: 14 (NLT)

“In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
John 1: 4, 5 (NIV)

“O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties, above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee and crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!”         
America the Beautiful

A curtain of darkness was lowered over us for a time on that day twenty-two years ago. It was a time of uncertainty.

My bride reached me by phone a few minutes after 8:46 am, on a cool and sunny Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001, with the words—

“A plane has crashed into one the Towers of the World Trade Center…”

She wanted me to know. We prayed together.

Minutes later my cell phone rang again. I picked up to hear Lynda’s faint trembling voice share— “A second…a second plane…has hit the south Tower of the World Trade Center…” We cried and prayed.

And then a plane crashed into the Pentagon. And another crashed into an empty field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

I wonder how many today will pause to remember the evil of those attacks on our homeland. We must wonder sometimes, as we look around, if complacency and apathy has settled into some of our memories and journey, displacing our commitment to each other and the foundations of our nation.

So where do we turn. 

In his remarks at the National Day of Prayer and Remembrance on Friday, September 14, 2001, the late Reverend Billy Graham reminded us—

“Underneath the debris is a foundation that was not destroyed. Now we have a choice: Whether to implode and disintegrate emotionally and spiritually as a people and a nation, or whether we choose to become stronger through all of this struggle to rebuild on a solid foundation. And I believe that we are in the process of starting to rebuild the foundation.  

That foundation is our trust in God.”

Reverend Graham pointed us past the attacks which come from outside and those from within, all which seek to destroy us. And to return to the Light, and to the God-ordained foundations of this great nation.

We did not seek nor deserve the attacks on our freedoms or way of life on September 11, 2001. America may have lost something that day, but it will never lose the solid foundation of those who have gone before, or our heroic heritage, and the God in whom we have trusted since our inception 247 years ago.

And in moments like today, and the days ahead, the true measure of our nation’s strength—and each one of us individually and together—is found and demonstrated in how we rise out of the troubles of our days into all we were meant to be by our Creator.

As we remember all those who lost their lives that day, it’s time to also return and rise again as individuals and as a nation. 

To return to the Light of Christ which always shines in the darkness.

And to rise out of the ashes of destruction and disappointment, out of the personal despair and storms which hit us all at times, with the Light of Christ leading us to rise again to all we were created to be individually, and together as a nation. 

This is a time for American heroes to remember, return and rise.

And when we do—we will touch the face of God. 

In His Name–Scott

Be lifted by this inspiring rendition after September 11, 2001, at Bank One Ballpark in Phoenix, Arizona (now called Chase Field), of “America the Beautiful” by Ray Charles.