I don’t know how I got started watching but a youtube news reel from the Sept 11th attacks was a REAL reel to me, since I was there in that point of time and remember the events in my perspective. And then I started looking at the map because I have never been to the flight 93 memorial area in the middle of nowhere but somewhere – it is south of Pittsburgh – and actually near a place I went year after year, for camping – and it is not far from Fallingwater the Frank Llyod Wright house.
Well, the park service has a wonderful webpage and after the video, I went and read each passenger on that Flight 93 and what they did – and importantly who they called back home before they decided to attack and fight back “Let’s Roll”… https://www.nps.gov/flni/learn/historyculture/crew-and-passengers.htm
Here are some quotes from the page: “When terrorists took over their plane, Gronlund called her sister to express her love, give her the combination to her safe, and say good-bye.”
and from a flight attendant talking about the passengers (forced in the back who voted to attack the cockpit): “During the hijacking of Flight 93, Lyles phoned her husband, reaching their answering machine. She told him, “I hope to be able to see your face again, baby. I love you. Good-bye.” In a second call five minutes before the crash, the couple spoke and prayed together. Her husband recalls that she told him, “Tell the boys I love them. We’re getting ready to do it now. It’s happening!” “
They were trading their lives for others – they knew that the planes had already hit the trade center towers – they heard on those phone calls. They had to act.
The video interview I watched was with the 2 first fighter pilots (who had no missiles on their planes but scrambled up to the air as immediate as you can imagine) – this interview was 20 years later – and they said they were not armed but willing (and had discussed it) that one would ram the front of the plane and the other would ram the rear. https://youtu.be/3H1JHVI7kCo?si=0kPvv-IDG5YV01cj
The other video was about how the secret service had to delicately tell the president of the situation while in front of school children learning to read – and how he and the press core knew all this (and reacted themselves) and then knew they had to keep their cool for a moment around all these school children – the interesting how they were determined to be calm and collected – and then such interesting photos of the war rooms (for both president and separately the press) set up in childhood classrooms… So interesting to watch 20 plus years later. They had to stay calm and decide how to act. https://youtu.be/ripNNLiSFUY?si=QpSwBFlBh92vb8C4
One could be mesmerized all day by these experiences.
This past week was D-day – honestly we forget even if we did study this over and over – but if you experienced it yourself then you would remember… That memory and that history gets written down and shared. Imagine how much gets lost…. Surreal…
Imagine now how much is saved in the bible – details – down to numbers of soldiers and the songs of prayers and praise around the battles – and around every day activities… This is the workings of the Lord – who traded His life on earth for so many that day – FOR EVERYONE – and traded His whole life for the Word made flesh – the Word from the beginning to the continuing… Imagine too that Jesus decided to trade one life for another – all while keeping us calm and making sure we, as little children, understood and were not jostled into life’s troubles… We may see the troubled reels and reals of life now, but we don’t have to worry about the long term battle – Jesus already won…
Interesting to know our Lord – and it know His Love. A Blessing to know it for REAL and for FOREVER.
Amen
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1st John 3
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.
More on Love and Hatred
For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
one more entry from a passenger, whose bible survived
On September 11, Donald Arthur and his wife Jean Hoadley Peterson were traveling to Yosemite National Park in California for a vacation with Jean’s brother and parents. When they arrived at the Newark airport early that morning, they were offered the opportunity to take Flight 93 instead of their scheduled, later flight. Don was the retired President of Continental Electric Company in New Jersey. Volunteerism, driven by deep faith, filled him and his wife’s retirement years. Don worked with men struggling with drug and alcohol dependency. They mentored and supported many in their church and community of Spring Lake, New Jersey. Don grew up in South Orange, New Jersey, had an electrical engineering degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and earned an MBA from Rutgers University. When the Petersons married in 1984, each had three children from a previous marriage. Don’s personal Bible was recovered at the Flight 93 crash site, complete with a handwritten list of men for whom he was praying.
Debbie Upper 