Eight years ago today on this day, I know exactly where I was. At 8:15AM I boarded a United flight at JFK to fly home to San Francisco. A little over an hour later I was in Indianapolis trying to make sense of the news that the pilot was giving us while we sat on the tarmac. Something about planes having crashed into the World Trade Center. When I reached my wife on the phone, she was hysterical as the prior 45 minutes she did not know if the plane I was on was one of the planes that had been hijacked or not. Needless to say, it was an emotional moment for us. Throughout that fateful week as I stayed with a college friend and his family in Indianapolis, who took me in like the stranded traveler that I was, we learned much about what had happened on Tuesday 9/11. I also learned that the flight that I had checked the night before with my assistant, and had talked about changing to to fly home, flight #93 out of Newark completed its journey in the fields of Pennsylvania. As we say sometimes way too glibly, “there but by the grace of God…”. It was on this day that we began to use the phrase “Ground Zero”. It now means only one thing to an American. On 9/11/2001 too many people never came home from a normal day at work in the World Trade Center Towers. It was also on that day that many people, because of the loss that they felt around them; loss of the lives of people they knew or didn’t but who they identified with, or loss of stability and security, looked to God for a foundation where they could find firm footing. It is in the time of loss, insecurity and desperation that many times we turn back to the only one who can give us the firm foundation that we need. As we read in Luke 6:48, we need to build our lives on a foundation of rock. “It is like the person building a house who digs deep and lays the foundation on solid rock”. In times of trouble, in times of loss, in times of unforeseen calamity, it is Jesus who is our foundation. It is Jesus who we must return to as the true “ground zero” in our lives.

May today we remember those who were just going to work on Tuesday September 11th, 2001 and didn’t come home. May we pray right now for their families and loved ones who still feel that loss and that they may they find the true ground zero in their lives.

Reference: Luke 6:48