The Day After

Doug Kanter AFP
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To me, one of the hardest days to face is the day after a tragedy. 

In that first moment of wakefulness the morning after, you don't remember. 
For one second everything is the way it always was.

But then it hits you. 
again. 

And you wonder if it was a dream. 
You wonder if it really happened. 

Your eyes scan the surroundings and inevitably something there...
or something missing
reminds you,
yes. 
with a heart-wrenching cry, 
yes. 
It did happen. 
It was real. 
And today the hell of it all is fresh. 

The day ended. 
But the nightmare didn't. 
New reality starts here. 

Life went on. 
But it would never be the same. 

This reality is true in any tragedy faced in this life.
And especially true after a day as horrific as September 11, 2001. 

We all remember that day. 
We remember where we were. 
What we thought. 
What we did. 
How we responded. 
What it looked like. 

But I also remember September 12th.
A new day seemed wrong. 
Unfair.
Darkness and mourning seem the only appropriate response. 
The sun should have stayed hidden. 

But yet the sun shone as it always had.
The tide came in as it always does.
Life came into the world as it had been ordained to.
Time continued without the pause one would think a catastrophe would warrant. 
But time never wavers. Not ever.

I look at pictures of that day in remembrance, but I don't need the pictures. 
They are forever burnt to my memory. 
I will never not be affected by those images. 
It will always be "too soon" for anything dealing with that day. 

I will aways look with simultaneous sadness and envy on the generation born after that fateful day. 
They can't feel it the way I do. 
That frustrates me because I so want them to understand the depth and the weight of that day.
But I also envy them in their ignorance. 
I don't believe, however, despite our date of birth, that we should ever be ignorant about any such event in the history of our nation. 

September 11th was a dark day in history. 
September 12th we had to wake up and face that dark reality. 

But God promises that his mercies are new every morning. 
The sun came up. A new day started. And God's mercies were new and waiting.

If my hope were in this world, then September 11th would ruin me. 
Waking up on September 12th would have been the most hopeless of days. 

But

[God is] my refuge and my shield

I have put my hope in [his] word

Psalm 119:114

One needs only glance through history to know tragedy is not limited to one generation. 

The Bible, as well as other historical books, is filled with chapters of tragedy.

God's people in the tragedies outlined in God's word were filled with the same emotions we were on that unforgettable day and the days to follow. 

Today on September 12, 2015. 

14 years later. 

My hope must remain with the same One it did then. 

He never fails though all on this earth will. 

The author of Lamentations mourns the loss of a people. Of a city. 
Now, I understand that the devastation he mourns was on a much, much larger scale. And the horrors of it, while not lessening our loss, was greater and more widespread than our own. 
But none-the-less. On a certain scale,

He felt what we felt. 

The book from beginning to end is a mournful cry of loss and devastation. Horror and pain. 

But in the middle lies hope in the midst of the surrounding darkness. 

It was as if the author walked the streets of NYC on September 12th. 

Everything fresh. Vivid. 
Painfully vivid.

Images of tragedy swirling around making one queasy with horror. 

But in the midst of the darkness - a hope. 

The same hope then as now. 

He wrote:

My soul still remembers. 

And sinks within me.

[but] this I call to my mind

therefor I have hope:

Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed.

Because his compassions fail not. 

They are new every morning. 

Great is your faithfulness. 

Lamentations 3:20-23