Eight Years Ago

September 11, 2001, I was a freshman at a private Christian high school in a suburb of Houston, Texas. My first period class was P.E., a not-so-lovely way to start the day when one abhors sweat as much as I do. I had just finished changing out of my P.E. clothes into my normal school clothes and had walked into the hallway between the restrooms and the gym when I first started hearing bits and pieces of what had just happened. Some of these bits and pieces were true, some were partially true, some turned out not to be true at all. I think the first thing I was told was that we (our country) had been bombed. I then heard some crazy rumors like our treasury was on fire, and wondered what in the world was going on.

We had a school-wide meeting in our chapel shortly after I first heard the news, where we were told exactly what happened (or at least what we knew at the time). I remember my friend Adri was weeping, afraid we would go to war and her older brother would be drafted. It did seem like the beginning of a terrible war. It was something I never would have imagined in my lifetime.

Classes weren't normal that day. At my school then we didn't have a TV in every room (like I would be used to just two years later at my public high school in Tennessee), but TVs were rolled into the classrooms so we could watch the news and learn more about the day's events. I've never watched the news so much in one day. Heck, the amount of news I watch that day would probably outweigh the accumulation of the news coverage I have seen throughout the rest of my life.

A lot has happened in our country since that day eight years ago, for better and for worse. I think we forget about it a lot though, and take it for granted. May we always remember, not just on the 9-11 anniversary, but every time we vote, every time we pledge allegiance, every time we see our country's flag. May we never forget that while we are a great nation, we are not a perfect nation. We are capable of falling. We must not never, ever take that for granted. Like the saying goes, if we forget our history, we'll repeat its mistakes.

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

*EDIT* A friend of mine posted this article about today's anniversary on Facebook, and I thought it was pretty neat.