Have a dressed up day!

Monday, September 12, 2011

Maybe one day I won't even acknowledge September 11. But I hope not.

This little blog of mine is small. In the cyberspace world it rarely gets a glimpse, not much of a second look. 

And I'm okay with that, because it really is done for me and mine. And a happy result is when it makes someone else smile or laugh or even cry.

If you read here I hope you will not mind me visiting the archives of this space today.

This is the second September eleventh since I wrote the post below in 2009.

Nothing really has changed for me on this day. I still push back some anger. I still become overwhelmed with a sadness. And like everyone else - I wish that day away forever.

Maybe one day I won't even acknowledge September 11, 2001. But I hope not.

So again . . .




In 2001 He's Too Good To Me and I were going through some financial difficulties. Honestly, there was more than that.  Ours lives had fallen apart and we had just begun to pick up the pieces.  We had agonized through a heart-breaking separation.  Found each other again through a painful car accident.  And only months before had once again acknowledged that our lives were together.

 Once you manage to drag yourself through the trials that are life you draw closer to one another. It's just the way things are.  It passes down from generation to generation. Back to the beginning. 

Wonder who was angrier? Adam? Because Eve had succumbed to temptation and eaten the fruit? Or Eve? Because Adam was not strong enough to stop her? Can't you just hear the conversation between the two of them?  You should not have done it!  Well, why didn't you stop me?

Once they got over blame and anger and adjusted to their new life, I know they drew into each other even more. For now they had needs.

On this day in September of 2001 I had left the house early to go pay a bill, scheduled turn off day.  As I parked my car the news was reporting a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.  No one was speaking of it in the store yet - it was, at that moment, just another sad tragedy that was happening far away.

While I was driving home the second plane hit. All at once my problems were small and I would now witness a nation drawing into each other.

I had left the girls at the house - Delia was 12 and I would be less than 2 miles away. In the moments it took me to get home no one was reporting yet of an attack on America.  There was confusion and rambling on the news and my heart was in a state of panic. I needed to get to my babies.

I remember watching all day.  I followed every minute.  Etching a timeline into my mind forever.  I cried and I tried to explain to the young hearts and minds of my girls what I could not understand myself.

I wanted my husband, Gregg. I wanted my mama and daddy, I wanted my sisters. There were people I loved, feared for.

When the sounds began of bodies hitting ground as desperate people chose an unimaginable way out of that horror I no longer had the strength to stand. I remember sitting on the bathroom floor with a towel held to my mouth to stifle the sounds I could not contain.

Fear was mixed with a desperate need to stay calm. A sadness overwhelmed my heart that was so shattered for the pain of others that it was more powerful than anything I had ever felt.  Anything. So I just sat there, cried, and let Jesus intercede for me to my Father God, for I did not know how or what to pray.

Adam and Eve, the first of us, God's creation to bring Himself joy. Their fear must have been the same, the unknown was before them.  Their lives had changed, as ours was. It had already begun to change for me - on Oct. 1, 1997 -  the saddest day in the history of my hometown, Pearl. I had babies at that school, I had a sister there, friends and their children were there.

That had been my first taste of evil in the hearts of men.  I didn't want anymore. 

But here it was.  This day. 

Generation after generation from the beginning - trials of life - anger, sadness, fear. We were created to bring Him joy and look what we did to ourselves. Look at what He gave us and look at what we did with it.

Then look what Jesus did.

In time I have mostly gotten over blame and anger, I have adjusted to a new life after September 11.  The ability to do that is another gift from above.

So, do I really have to remember?  

I move through my days loving my husband, caring for my children, and treasuring my life. I pray to God when times are good for Him to prepare my heart for the bad times that are coming. Days like today, when my Daddy's doctor gives us news that's not so good, and surrounding all that - it is September 11.

So, for me, I have to remember.

My friend Sandra has to remember. Today I sit and watch her cry for those families and we remember together.

I remember with the help of words from a song I love -

In your eyes I see the pain,
come soak this dry heart in healing rain ...
Lift your hands, they can be held
 by someone greater - the great I Am.

Healing Rain by Michael W. Smith

 Listen to it and close your eyes and don't remember the horror. Remember the families, lift your hands for them. Remember your family. And, with joy, thank God.



and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14

posted from the archives, september 11, 2009




Drawing of me losing my cool courtesy of budding artist, Izzy.


Have a dressed up day!


. . . put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Colossians 3:12