Nine years ago on this day I was working for a private company in Human Resources. As the morning was getting started, I was talking to a friend in DC who told me that an airplane had just hit one of the towers. I immediately went to a news website on the internet. Then another plane hit.. then she said there was a plan coming to hit the Pentagon. By this time the televisions around the work area were all tuned to stations reporting on the incredulous events that took place on September 11th. I remember calling the friends and family I knew to be working in downtown Manhattan to see if they were okay. Apparently my cousin who normally works in the Twin Towers was traveling that day. I remember not being able to process what was going on and asking my manager for the rest of the day off...
A local radio station played Jeff Majors' then popular and very appropriate gospel song Psalm 23 song every hour - on the hour. I remember that our nation was looking for answers where the only answer was a spirit of hate that seems to be still consuming this world. I remember in the aftermath people asking God why did this happen. I remember not really accepting anyone's answer. Even the only acceptable to anyone's question about why bad things happen to good people (answer: God is sovereign) was unacceptable and made no sense. I still asked, WHY???
I still ask, "Why bad things happen at all?" It's an easier pill to swallow when bad things happen to "bad people" or those who "deserve it", but why do they happen at all? Why do we have to suffer so? Why some more than others?
What does make sense is that I know now - better than then - that God is sovereign, and who am I to question His decision to let the beings He created exercise their free will? Our free will is our decision to love or to hate. To love God and receive God's love for us - spreading that love to others OR to inject hate into the world that we get from the hate that satan spews through the portals in our lives that we let him enter into. Even when we are the victims of the most evil acts, we can choose to respond not in kind, but in love...
God is sovereign and he is not to blame for anything. Check your portals and check yourself. We have to be the change we are seeking. Receive God's love and spread that agape love. Do not be discouraged or affected by the hate some have chosen. You have a choice. Choose life and illuminate others with your light within! Walk in love...
