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| Photo taken on a 2012 visit to the Flight 93 Memorial |
The twelfth anniversary of 9/11 has passed us by. After
pausing to remember the brave people who lost their lives, a flood of
thankfulness overcame me. I am thankful
to God for softening my heart. I am
thankful He called me to Him and made me His Own. I am thankful He placed
people in my path that helped bring me to Him. I am thankful God opened my eyes
and allowed me to truly see my life. I
am thankful He filled me with hope. I am
thankful He wrapped me up in His Love and led me to my first church home.
Where would I be without God in my life? I don’t want to know. I have a feeling though, it would not be a good place. I think wherever I would have ended up would have been a destructive, self-defeating, sad place. Oh how grateful I am that my life will never go back to how it was.
To understand my heart, you must hear my entire story. To know why, every year on the anniversary of 9/11, I have such intense feelings, you must read on. Let me start at the beginning.
In the fall of 2001 I was divorced, living at home with my parents, and living the life of a single twenty-something. I had made plans with my best girlfriend to go to New York City for the weekend. We drove to New York on Friday, September 7th. After arriving in town, my girlfriend and I enjoyed an evening in Little Italy, shopping and eating. The next day we had a great time exploring the city. We visited the Empire State Building, rode the subway, and checked out Times Square. That night we had the opportunity to eat dinner at Windows on the World, which was a restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center. I declined thinking we could check out the World Trade Center on another trip to NYC. Little did I know that those buildings would not be standing there in 72 hours.
On Sunday September 9th, my friend and I headed back home exhausted. We had a great time and were making plans to go back to the city soon. My girlfriend and I had tossed around the idea of possibly staying in New York for a few extra days but ultimately, we decided to head back to Pittsburgh. I went back to work like normal on Monday and by Tuesday I was already looking forward to the weekend when I could go out with my friends again.
I had no direction in my life at this time. I was trying to figure out who I was and what I wanted to do. I signed on at community college to take some business classes and I was becoming interested in going to church. I noticed a lady carrying a book one day at my work called “He Wore Sandals Too” and asked her what it was about. She told me about the book and the group that was studying it at her church. I thought that her church might be an interesting place and made a mental note to check it out sometime.
On the morning of Tuesday, September 11th I was at work, at my desk, already thinking about the weekend. I was on the phone with a colleague in New Jersey. She had just told me she heard that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. I told her that was horrible, imagining a small Cessna or prop plane. I had no idea what was really going on.
Shortly after I got off the phone, word started spreading around my office what was taking place. We all huddled around the TV in shock. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing before my eyes and I couldn’t believe that I was just in New York City. I was in a daze as the morning went on. I could not comprehend that a city I had just been in was now under attack. I was so thankful that those events did not occur while I was still there. I felt like the timing of my trip had happened for a reason.
When I had heard about Flight 93 crashing in Shanksville, I truly believed that this was the beginning of the end. I thought that World War III was going to break out in the next few days. I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t feel comfortable being near tall buildings and whenever I looked up in the sky, I got sad. It was eerie not to see a single plane. I couldn’t handle watching all the grieving people on TV and broke down when I saw crying families or scenes of Ground Zero.
Around this time I felt like I really needed to know God. I felt like He was calling me. I knew that if the world was going to end, I wanted to be with God in heaven when I died and not in hell. I wanted my life to change. I wanted the peace that a relationship with the Lord would give me.
I will never forget the morning that I asked Jesus to come into my heart and for God to forgive me of my sins. It was a cool, crisp, sunny fall morning. The sun was shining in the stained glass windows of the tiny, little church. It was my first time there and it was packed with parishioners. I was sitting in the pew and there were people all around me but I felt like the pastor was only talking to me. The sermon was about repentance. He talked about how it is important to ask God for forgiveness but that you need to repent of your sins; that you need to turn away from them and walk on a path that leads you closer to God. The message spoke to me. Tears welled up in my eyes and I felt all kinds of emotions running through me. That Sunday morning I prayed for Jesus to come into my heart and make me new. I prayed for God to forgive me of my sins. I wanted to repent. I wanted a new life and I desperately wanted a close relationship with God.
Since that day my life has never been the same. All of the things I was looking for: direction, purpose, hope, joy, happiness, and love were given to me. So, you can understand why this day stops me in my tracks. Whatever I am doing, whatever is going on in my life is shadowed by this day. This is the day that changed our nation, our world, and our lives. For some, it changed their hearts!
-Marcy Gates
“Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” Psalm 42:5 NIV
