9/11 Then and Now

I wasn’t in the United States on 9/11. I was in Ireland trying to figure out where our bed and breakfast for the night was located. My mother and sisters and I were on the trip of a lifetime to see where our Irish ancestors had come from. We were due to fly out the next day. It was a day already filled with frustration when the convenience store clerk told me what was happening, and I didn’t believe him. It was just too incredible.

Today started out much like that day. Wrangling with Dell over why my computer order was canceled for the third time, but finally talking to someone who actually knew and straightened things out. Frustration…and then reading an email that a friend is now under mandatory evacuation for hurricane Ike, and once again, although not as dramatically, the minor frustrations of life pale in the face of life or death events.

Not thinking anything really profound here. Just that life is sure like that.

"When we all get to heaven what a day of rejoicing that will be." But for now, "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain." The now is pretty hard.