8 years ago

This is the time of year when everyone remembers how our country was attacked and thousands of civilians lost their lives. People have been including it in their facebook statuses, and some are poking fun at those who do. This week is when Discovery Channel, NatGeo, A&E, etc does all their 9/11 specials, about various topics like engineering, architecture, personal stories from survivors, and even conspiracy theories. For many of us, it is still very fresh, and no matter who you are, you were in some way affected by it.

That morning started like any other for me, as pretty much everyone, I guess. It was my first year at A&M (junior year). I got up, ate breakfast, and watched the morning news with Liz (one of my housemates) for a few minutes. I remember her saying that not much must be going on b/c the biggest news of the day was that Bethel Johnson, an A&M football player was out with an injury. I pedaled to my first class, HLTH 331 with Dr. Wylie in the insanely cold GRW 267 classroom. After class we went outside to thaw for a while before Dr. Dorman's HLTH 210 class immediately following. Someone rode past us on their bike, telling us what had happened, that the World Trade Center had collapsed. We chalked it up to a rumor or a story blown out of proportion, and headed back to class.

When we got back to class, Dr. Dorman came in and announced, "Due to the cold temperature in this classroom and the recent turn of events in our country, class is cancelled today." Wow. He never cancels class.

My friend Alicia and I went across the street to the Koldus building to where her mom worked in the Office of Student Activities. The Director of Student Activities was actually stuck in Newark, trying to get back to CS. We sat in that office, glued to the TV for several hours. After a while I went home, biking alone on the A&M campus... nobody was outside. It was so weird. At home, the TV was on, and because we spent all that time in front of the TV, the housemates got a little stir crazy and we re-arranged the living room. Ma was not happy about that.

Like I said before, we have all been affected in some way by it... politics, safety, air-travel (what a pain!!!), war, lost loved ones... but something my Dad said that day stuck with me: "You know, God was not surprised by this." Wow! He has our lives in His hands and cares about the big things and the small things. This is something that we may know, but often times forget.

Don't we serve a great God?