"Let's Roll"

It is so hard to believe that it has been six years since Sept 11, 2001. I remember that morning so vividly...it was a GORGEOUS day, Lindsey was about 15 months old, running around doing whatever, and just after 9 am the phone rang...it was Bob..."Have you seen the news?" I hadn't turned it on, because I don't like the news being on with the kids around..."No, what's up?" "A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center." I turned the TV on just as the second plane was going into the second tower. Ugh...20 minutes later my Mother called me on her way to work in downtown DC...she was right near the Pentagon and said "Check the news, I see a low flying plane....then she said "I see smoke." She had to hang up because she had to negotiate traffic, and the next thing I know NBC is reporting that there was another plane down, this time going into the Pentagon. The plane my mother saw was the plane carrying the hijackers. It took me a good while to hook back up with her because all the cell phone lines were jammed...but she was safe and obviously didn't go into work that day because they weren't letting anyone into the city. The whole day was surreal. While it was all unfolding, I just kept thinking to myself, The Lord is in control, The Lord is in Control, The Lord is in Control...the world and all of Satan's henchmen will not win because as the Bible says:

Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. 1 John 4:4

And as I mentioned in a post several weeks ago, ALL things, and that means good and bad things, work together for good according to His purposes. While I was on vacation last month, I read the book "Let's Roll" by Lisa Beamer who is a Christian woman whose husband Todd went down in the plane in Shanksville, PA. I have had that book for so many years, but I just got around to reading it. It was really good, easy to read and so inspiring. She is a remarkable woman thrust into the public eye and has never once watered down her message of salvation and hope. I highly recommend it. She wrote about many things that happened before, during and after the crash that I didn't know about....many of the personal things she wrote about were illustrative of God's providence in their lives leading up to that day...I know she was on the talk show circuit after the fact, but I didn't pay much attention. Yet I do remember hearing the term "Let's Roll" in the context of her husband and others getting ready to thwart the hijackers....it turns out it was also a term her husband used with his children when they were getting ready to leave the house or to go do something...this time he was trying to save lives. The point I want to make is that her book is really a message of HOPE.....she writes on page 233:

"My family and I mourned the loss of Todd deeply that day...and we still do. But because we hope in the Lord, we know beyond a doubt that one day we will see Todd again. I hurt for the people who don't have the same hope, and I pray that somehow the events of September 11 will encourage them to investigate the possiblity that faith in Jesus really is the answer to all of their life questions."

After I read the book, I went onto Amazon to read reviews of her book...one person commented that she "didn't care for Ms. Beamer's brand of Christianity." I laughed. There is only one "brand of Christianity" and that is, that the only way to heaven is through a relationship with Jesus Christ...that my friends is in the Bible...Once you accept Him as your saviour, you cross from death to life and will spend eternity in Heaven...not in the lonely pit of Hell separated from God...without Him there is no HOPE...Lisa's point is that choosing Jesus gets you through the tough times with the mindset that you can do anything through Him...without Him, you say "yes" to egomaniacal evildoers that want you to sacrifice your life by flying a plane into large buildings killing thousands of people....The verse she kept coming back to was Isaiah 40:30-31. I posted it on my "Verse of the Moment" as a reminder that our hope is only through one person...Jesus Christ. Choose that kind of hope for your life if you haven't already.