As more time goes by since the first September 11th, I’m finding more and more people who either were too young to have been impacted much or who’s lives it didn’t effect like it did ours. But there is very little about our lives that September 11th didn’t change, and I always feel incredibly reflective and grateful when this day rolls around.

I won’t go into the whole story (I tell it better in person, anyway, so you’ll have to come over for coffee or even better, a glass of wine for me to tell it properly). But it’s hard for me to express just how much changed for us that day.

Hear me, we did not, thankfully, loose anyone we loved. I know so many who did and for them this day not only marks massive changes in their lives and our country, but also the difficult anniversary of loss. My heart is heavy for them today.

For us the changes were more about the trajectory of our lives. Our purpose. Our parenting. Our direction.

Because of September 11th . . . .

• Scott was furloughed from a major airline (a situation that would not be resolved for five years)
• We were without consistent income at all for almost two years, and were underemployed for three years after that.
• I went back to work (part time at first and then eventually full time)
• We lost almost all of our retirement (due to a contract with the airline made null and void by bankruptcy and a lovely thing called ‘force majeure’ which was a term I was blissfully unaware of until October of 2001)
• We experienced true, on the edge of homelessness poverty. How we held onto our house is still a miracle and a mystery to me (although I must thank ALPA, the pilot’s union, for their unwavering support of all of us that found ourselves confused and bewildered during this difficult time)
• Both of us struggled with depression and even worse, despair. Not knowing how we would make it through each day and how we would survive financially (and some days, wondering if we would survive at all)
• We watched the career we had worked toward for over a decade seemingly disappear before our eyes. Scott wondered if he’d ever be able to be employed as a pilot again.

Those are the bad things. But there were also many good things. Because of September 11th . . .

• I turned back to a risen Savior that I had lost sight of along the way.
• We learned that as a couple, and as a family, we were tougher then we knew. That we could get by with less than we thought. That we could survive.
• We re-ordered our priorities and got back to what really matters.
• We got back in church.
• I went back to work outside of our home (funny how that one is in both columns)

That last one is maybe the most significant of all for me. Had I not gone back to work I would have missed what I now believe is what God was calling me to all along. My life as a pastor has given me not only a way to contribute financially to our household, but has revealed to me my true purpose. Although rarely easy and often exasperating, I cannot imagine doing anything else.

It may not take something as dramatic or terrifying or tragic as what happened on September 11th for you to find your purpose. In fact, I pray to God that it doesn’t! But I can look at this day now 12 years ago as a marker and know that God has us in the palm of his hand through it all. Through the depression and the anger and the poverty and the confusion. We were never alone and we were always on the path he had for us.

It took me many years to believe that. I would often go back in my mind to the what ifs. What if it had never happened. What if I really was the stay at home, volunteering, ever present mom that my imagination dreamed I would be. What if we didn’t have to worry about money or retirement. But those what ifs were never going to be my reality, no matter how much I had dreamed about them.

They were MY dreams for me. But they weren’t God’s.

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and came and pray to me and I will listen to you.” Jeremiah 29:11

He knows his plans. They are his. They aren’t mine. And the life I have now, although rarely easy, is, I know, the one he had planned all along. It changed for the better how we parent, how we worship and how we live. So I am grateful. Not for terrorists and death and destruction, certainly, but for what has come after. For how God has graciously guided us and directed us and yes, blessed us abundantly. And I will never forget.

Jen