Sunday night around 10 pm on 9/9/01 I was standing on Queens Blvd in Queens NYC admiring the twin towers as I looked into Manhattan. What a sight! I had no earthly idea what was about to happen on 9/11. I flew home to Detroit late that night and remember coming to the office Tuesday morning listening to the radio around 9 am. A breaking news report came on saying a plane had flown into one of the towers. When I arrived at the office I told Sally to turn on the TV and we sat there and watched as a second plane flew into the second tower. We were stunned
As soon as the ban on flying was lifted Mike Osminski and I flew back to NYC. Wilson Caimares Pastor of The Iglesia Misionera de Jesucristo Mike and I went down to ground zero and walked around the entire site. I remember how quiet everyone was walking around with a dazed look. At every corner a makeshift memorial was set up with signs "Have you seen this person?" We saw the beams that fell and stuck into the ground in the form of a cross. Lines of dump trucks were single file going into the site to remove rubble. The dust the destruction the sadness the grief hung in the air there was nothing to say but walk silently and pray. I will never forget those days and I pray that people will never forget them either.
If
you desire to be justified before God, you must either bring to him a
perfect righteousness of your own, and wholly renounce Christ; or else
you must bring the perfect righteousness of Christ, and wholly renounce
your own.
Edward Fisher, The Marrow of Modern Divinity (Christian Focus, 2009), 111
This is clear and simple
C. S. Lewis, letter to Mary Neylan, January 20, 1942:
I know all about the despair of overcoming chronic temptations.
It is not serious provided self-offended petulance, annoyance at
breaking records, impatience etc doesn't get the upper hand. No amount
of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each
time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time
we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, and the clean clothes are airing in the cupboard.
The only fatal thing is to lose one's temper and give it up. It is when
we notice the dirt that God is most present to us: it is the very sign
of His presence.
--The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume 2 (Cambridge University Press, 2004), 507; emphasis original
I find this extremely encouraging. Have you noticed the dirt on you? Or
do you just pretend its not there. We all have "chronic temptations"
that lead us to despair but we need to take hope in the fact that "no
amount of falls will really undo us" God will completely clean us up
once we leave this earth "the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put
out and the clean clothes are airing in the cupboard" Thank you Jesus
for your amazing grace.
