Over the past weeks, there’s been much written about the attacks on the World Trade Center. Richard Swenson, however, writes about a different aspect of those attacks.
On the 103rd floor as the workers were beginning their day, they were at first unaware of the commotion on the floors below. But as the shock and horror unfolded, some were able to make last minute phone calls. Some of those phones were recovered. What did the rescuers find in those last minute phone calls?
They weren’t calls to their broker to sell their stock. No phone calls were made to purchase new cars, sell old ones or to cancel the newspaper service. No, sadly, in the midst of trouble and the certainty of the end, a staggering clarity came into focus.
The phone calls were made to spouses, children, loved ones, close friends. They were the last messages they would ever leave on this planet. They were messages of love, appreciation and gratitude.
Oh may it not be said of us that we needed an airplane crashing into the building below us to bring clarity to our lives! But perhaps, just perhaps, we can take today, this day, and live with stunning clarity of those things that are important and eternal.
--William High is the President of the National Christian Foundation Heartland. He may be reached at whigh@nationalchristian.com.