9-11 – The Church That Stood and Stands

In the recent aftermath of September 11, 2001, my husband and I were in New York City for a meeting and wanted to pay our respects at “Ground Zero,” where the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers had stood.

We stood in a long snake-line of people also there to pay respect to the memories of innocent people that had so recently perished inside and near the towers. We remembered, also, their dead fellow citizens of a field in Shanksville, PA, the Pentagon.

In that New York City line were people in business attire, sports outfits, and casual clothes. Everyone was very quiet. Patience and respect stood in that slow line, eerily on display where normally there would have been rush and irreverence in the bustle of a normal routine.

We did not need reminding of the abnormality of the times. The black iron fence surrounding the church next to the towers bore witness through photos of victims, placed by loved ones.

The photos clung with other notices with written prayers and verses of hopeful love. Maybe the one being searched for had survived and was lost, injured, or confused. The church stood resolute, having amazingly been spared through the tragedy of that of that recent September 11 morning.

Today, that church still stands. It remains a place of Christian worship and a merciful reminder of spiritual and physical protection. In spite of shattered glass, twisted metal, and other structural matter that flew out from the attacked towers, and the subsequent ash of the towers’ collapse that day, the church stands.

The church stands, a place spared, and helps honor the dead and gives a measure of comfort to survivors and to all Americans. The day of our visit to honor the innocent dead that day, the church was a haven for prayers and free food and drink for exhausted Ground Zero workers.

Today, the seventh memorial year of that 9/11, Ground Zero, the site of that infamous attack that roared up the Hudson River and through the skies from Boston, shows signs of change.

One future year, visitors may be able to pay their respects in a completed memorial setting that honors the innocent victims, including heroic workers, visitors, firefighters, police, chaplains, and others who gave their lives there to help others before flames, collapsing structures, or dust overcame them. The site is a shared grave of immense proportions restlessly abiding in the psyche of every person who grieves over that day.

When the memorial opens, I hope visitors will notice the church that stands nearby, embraced by that iron fence that bore loving notices for a long, long time. If ever that church suffers a direct attack, it is a great comfort to know that the Church it represents, the body of believers led by Jesus Christ, will stand eternally.

May all who honor the innocent lives that did not survive the four 9/11 attacks remember to pray for their families, friends, and co-workers who survived. May Christians be part of those who face the realities of what that day announced, that a fierce and determined system of evil, through Jihadist terrorism, exists and is intent on winning.

May we be humbly intent on the well-being of others as much as our own, like our founders who sacrificed for the common good. May we be vigilant with a fierce hatred of oppression and threats to the freedoms of America and every other democratic nation.

As a Christian, I desire to honor the lives of those who died on 9/11/01. Undeserved death and heroic acts, most unknown, joined in a living memorial. Their deaths are not in vain. The acts of terror under the ideology of those who took over four American airliners will not win over our spirit. Those who love, treasure, and seek to protect freedom will vanquish their ideology and their efforts.

Every day, including 9/11, is a day to remain aware, thankful, and supportive of those who seek to guard our country. Every day, may God keep the New York City church in Manhattan that stood by the Towers and that, by His grace, stands today.

God bless all who honor the memories of victims, rescuers, and comforters on this date, 9/11.

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:14-17).