by Marcy Yarbrough

Created on: October 29, 2008

At least once every generation, there is a life-changing event that people can point back to and remember vividly where they were that day, at that hour. I wasn't around for the JFK assasination and I barely remember the eruption of Mt St. Helens, to name only two. I do remember where I was during the Loma Prieta quake of '89 very well. But today marks the 7th anniversary of one of the largest (if not the largest) attack on America.

My husband was getting ready to leave for work that morning and I was just starting to wake up. He had the TV set to the news channel we watched every morning, only this time he called back to the bedroom, "Sweetie, you need to see this." I came out and saw the smoke from the first plane crash into the World Trade Center and we were stunned that such an accident had taken place. Not two minutes had gone by as we listened to the journalist's attempt to make sense of the happening when the second plane hit. We saw it live on the news... the camera jerked a bit and the reporters were suddenly made aware that this was no accident at all. This was in fact an intentional hit, as was the first. I remember being scared and angry at the same time, but powerless to fight whoever it was. Should I even go to work? We lived close enough to San Francisco that I worried we might be next. Who knew how many other planes had been commandeered. Then, the news stories began to come in. There were calls being made from various planes to 911 and the news anchors had trouble keeping up with the stream of new information. It was horrific, waiting for planes to safely land only to find out they too had crashed and there were no survivors.

I did drive to work. My reception desk faced the courtyard where I saw small groups of people gathering to pray. It was surreal and comforting to be in such a situation among others who looked to God for help. We held our own prayer meeting in one of our conference rooms at lunch-time, inviting only the folks we knew would be interested. We had no idea how some of the others might react to an invitation to pray.

The weeks following that day were clouded with sorrow. I remember being glad, though, that we had scheduled our wedding for April of that year even though our pastor made the suggestion to wait until the Fall. He thought we didn't know each other quite well enough in person after 7 years of writing letters. If we'd married in September, it's likely my husband's family would not have been at the wedding. In fact, traveling via airplane anymore is far too frustrating after that... and still has not improved (I'm not speaking of increased security - I'm speaking of the airline industry itself going down the tubes).

So, there you have it. That's where I was. To take a moment to remember that day helps fuel the fire to fight for freedom every day around the world. Where were you on September 11th?

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