This is a long post. So go grab a cup of coffee or some orange juice, and pull up a seat. I wish we could all be sitting together, around a great, big, long table; reading this and discussing it as a big group of friends. Since we can’t be together in person, I pray we can be together, here.
I began writing this on September 11, 2019. I write and schedule my devotions ahead of time, but I was struggling finishing this one, and never did. So I finished it last night.
Today is painful. It always is. Like you, I remember that horrible day, so vividly. I can’t remember what I wore yesterday, but I remember that day as though it just happened.
When I rewatch the videos and footage from that day, it is no less painful now that it was September 11, 2001.
I am here to confess something absolutely shameful about me. That day, I hated Muslims. I did. I hated them. I thought they were all terrorists. I was consumed with both fear and hatred. Please know I am mortified by this admission.
My heart has changed and softened, and I desperately want to love everyone; Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Atheists, Buddhists … you name a group, I want to love them.
Back then, I was in a Sunday School class with a precious couple; Ken and Nadine. Ken was battling cancer at the time, and I had put my name on the list to take a meal to them for Tuesday, September 11, 2001. My first thought that morning was to cancel. To not leave my house or to set Michala down. So I called Ken and Nadine around lunchtime to check in on them. I was going to bow out. I was going to suggest I bring a meal over another night when on the other end of that phone call, Ken, who was battling Stage 4 cancer told me when I said, “I am so afraid. I don’t know what to do,” he said, “Aimee. We can’t live our lives in fear. We can’t let evil win. God isn’t finished with us yet.”
Can you imagine? A man who knew he was going to die soon, was the one comforting me.
So I took over a big lasagna, a salad, bread and a Key Lime pie. Their little boy was probably four at the time. Before I left, I asked if we could pray together? I wanted to pray for Ken, and I wanted to pray for comfort for Nadine. I wanted to be in the moment with them. Ken’s health was deteriorating so quickly. Nadine knew she would be a young widow soon. The heaviness of their reality as well as the horror from that day loomed over each of us.
Instead, as we stood in their living rooms and held hands, Ken began praying for us. Ken prayed and asked God to comfort our entire nation. The three of us stood there holding hands, weeping. Ken prayed, “Father, please don’t let our children grow up and know hatred. Please don’t let them hate another generation of people who don’t believe the way we do. Let our children know love.”
Toes. Stepped. On. Big time.
I was so guilty of that very hatred. On September 11, 2001, I was consumed with raw emotions. Love for my country, love for the people around me, love for the cities who had been attacked, pride for being an American, and hate. Hatred toward the evil people who did this to us.
Fast forward to just a few years ago when Michala and I joined Terry in Florida. Her very first day in a new high school, a girl who was a year older than Michala extended a lunch invitation so Michala wouldn’t have to eat alone. That precious girl was a year older than Michala.
She was also Muslim. That girl was the first one to welcome Michala to not only a new school, but a new city and state.
How can you hate someone you don’t know? How can you hate someone who extends love and kindness to your child? The only answer is, you can’t. As former Senator Alan Simpson from Wyoming said at President George H.W. Bush’s funeral, “Hatred corrodes the container it’s carried in.”
Michala and I were in Target one day a couple of years ago when a lady holding her eight or nine month old baby was struggling to get a buggy. (Cart). They were somehow locked together and she clearly had her hands full. Without thinking, I reached in front of her, placed my right hand on her back and said, “Let me help.” She was a Muslim lady. Her baby reached for me, and again without thinking, I held out my arms to hold him, and asked, “May I?” She agreed, and I gleefully took her baby in my arms, kissed his cheek, and was convicted, yet again.
The lady had tears in her eyes and was so grateful for the tiny, small amount of help I extended. I was so grateful her baby reacted to me the way he did. I was even more grateful God convicted me and kept my heart from growing bitter.
I don’t want to hate anyone. I don’t want to hate one group of people because of what another group of people did to us. It wasn’t them flying the planes into the buildings. I am ashamed it took me years to beg God to forgive me for the anger and hatred I harbored toward Muslims.
Friends, a lot of people are harboring a lot of anger and hatred, today. Some people hate the police. Some people hate black people. Some people hate the fighting. Some people hate the “uncomfortableness” of it all. Well, yes. It’s uncomfortable.
But we need to put anger and hatred aside. There’s no room for it, here. We need to extend some grace. We need to extend some forgiveness. We need to extend some apologies. We need to ask for forgiveness.
I am sorry I am late to the conversation. But let’s keep the conversation going. Let’s pray for softened hearts and changed minds.
“But even if you suffer for doing what is right, God will reward you for it. So don’t worry or be afraid of their threats.” - 1 Peter 3:14 (NLT)
I will close with the same prayer Ken prayed that day … weeks before he died: “Father, please don’t let our children grow up and know hatred. Please don’t let them hate another generation of people who don’t believe the way we do. Let our children know love.”