Twenty years, ancient history?

Does it shock you to realize some of the voters in this month’s election weren’t even born when the events of September 11, 2001, took place? In the twenty years since, many books about that day have been written and read, documentaries made and watched. The ramifications continue—everything from heightened security at airports to which we’ve all grown accustomed, to the ongoing horrifying news out of the middle east—to which I hope we never grow accustomed.

Everyone over thirty remembers where they were. I was driving to my job at Portage (now Prairie) Alliance Church, my 14-year-old son—in grade nine at Westpark School—beside me.

The radio reported an airplane had crashed into a skyscraper in New York City. I envisioned a small private plane with engine trouble. How unfortunate.

Then they said a second plane had hit the same place and I thought, “What? That can’t be right. The odds are impossible. They must be mistaken.”

I forgot all about it.

Until an hour or two later when one of our pastors interrupted the meeting I was in. “Have you guys been hearing what’s going on?”

We spent the remainder of the day glued to the television. As more stories emerged, we wondered when it would stop. I had a son in the United States and a daughter in Switzerland. Would I ever see them again? Was this how the world would end?

I can’t help thinking people asked the same question during World War II, especially when the atomic bombs dropped.

They probably asked it during the Spanish Flu pandemic, too.

And during the “war to end all wars” before that.

And in March of 2020 when news reports made it seem we’d all be wiped out by a virus.

It’s a question asked repeatedly throughout history. Yet here we still are. Fighting the same battles. Wondering how bad things will get. How long can we hold out? How will it all end?

I recently finished a great book by Canadian novelist Genevieve Graham called Letters Over the Sea. Set in Toronto from 1933-46, the main character is a girl whose four brothers and a romantic interest are all fighting in the war. By the end, one brother has died, one has lost a leg, one suffers severe facial disfigurement and nervous ticks, and one exhibits what we’d now call severe PTSD. The romantic interest is missing, presumed dead.

The author describes in detail Prime Minister Mackenzie King’s announcement on VE day and the celebrations in the streets, pubs, and homes. People banging pots and pans. Church bells ringing. As I read the scene, tears ran down my cheeks, imagining what emotions would surface after five years of constant strain. Knowing that, though the war was over, its fallout would continue.

My tears had less to do with the book’s characters or even the real-life people they represented, and more to do with my own future. Imagine every worry, heartache, pain, and conflict gone for good on the day God makes that happen. Oh, the utter relief.

Author Sarah Young says, “The truth is, the world has been at war ever since Adam and Eve first sinned. With the threat of terrorism…people are feeling that no place is really safe. In one sense, this is true. However, for Christian believers, there is no place that is actually unsafe.”

Nothing can happen to you except what God allows. In Christ, we are always safe.

So much more than a ticker-tape parade is coming. No terrorist, no disease, no vaccine, no accident, no war holds the power to rob you of your glorious inheritance. “…he has given us new birth…into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you…” (I Peter 1:3-4)