Has it been four years?

September 11, 2001: once again, "a date that will live in infamy." What does that mean? It means we will never forget. I can still vividly remember that day. Still in high school and home schooled, I was beginning my work when mom called us to the living room to watch the news. There was a plane crash, she said. No one knew what was going on. At the age of 14 I had no comprehension of the phrases they were using. Sure, I knew what terrorist were, but a terrorist attack in America? Don't those kinds of things happen in Israel? I watched the first tower burn, the images of the plane flying into it being played over and over again. It went off course, I thought. Some people will die, but this will end and everything will be explained. I went back to my school work. Minutes later I was called back to the television with the crash of the second plane into the other World Trade Center tower. I began to doubt my assertion that this was definately not a terrorist attack. But even if it was, what did that mean? Mom said the word "war". Even then, I had no comprehension. I had never been through a war; I barely remember the election of President Bush. You must remember that age when everything is just beginning to come into perspective. As events happen you develop a gradually more clear vision of politics and world affairs. The picture was still blurry for me.
Reality struck when I was called up stairs for a third time, this time to watch the first tower collapse to the ground. As I watched images of a giant dust cloud flowing through the streets of New York my only emotion was disbelief. This isn't really happening. Then the second tower fell. I didn't know what to do. Mom said I still had to go to my dentist appointment, so I walked in to the office in a daze. Everyone was talking about New York, all televisions were tuned in to the news. I let the hygenist check my braces, feeling stupid for caring when so many people were dying. When I returned home more events were added to the list of tragedies: a plane flying into the Pentagon, the crash of Flight 93 in Pennsylvania, the evacuation of the White House. As I watched our president make his famous speech condemning terrorism I wondered if we would go to war. Little did I know that by this fourth anniversary of that terrible day, thousands more would be dead. Now I am 18. I know what the word "terrorism" means. I can smell it. I can see the images of Saddam Hussein in his hole and the videos of kidnapped innocents in Afghanistan, later unmercifully beheaded. Should we have gone to war? That is a question that I can't answer, but I can tell you the last words of my opening argument in our high school debate. Held several weeks after the war had begun, we debated whether or not to go to war. These were my words: Bush says "'we will be weakend if we wait". God says, "They that wait upon the Lord will renew thier strength." You can't argue with The Truth.

The Story Behind the Ache

As told to me by my best friend, Jesus:

All women are born with an ache in their hearts for a companion. It begins when we are small and constantly desperate to climb into our fathers’s arms. As we grow into teenagers it materializes in the form of the common "dating game". We wonder if a certain someone "likes us", and we spend countless hours dreaming about the one we "like". But as we mature into young women and approach a marriageable age we start to experience this ache in a different way. Instead of needing to have someone in our thoughts, we are desperate for a lifelong companion. As we struggle to follow the Wisdom of the Spirit in knowing that we are not yet ready to marry, our hearts struggle to find a blance of waiting for our dream to be fulfilled when we have such a desperate need for fulfillment right now. Why, we ask, would our father in heaven give us this desperate ache in our hearts now when we know it can’t be fulfilled for several years to come? Some might say it is for us to learn patience, but the true meaning of it is this: we are living the purpose of the existence of our world. Let me elaborate. When we feel this ache in our hearts it is painful enough that we begin to wonder, Lord, have you felt this before? Do you know what I’m feeling? He replies by reminding us of the story of creation. God created us because he was eternally alone. He wanted and needed a companion, so he created man. But better than His creation of man was His design for our lives to be such an exact image of His that He also created woman. And in woman God put a tender heart with a desperate need for a mate. He put that desire in man too, perhaps not so strongly. So how does this all come together? Here is the truth. This ache in our hearts, girls, it not about us! God gave us this ache "before we were ready" because He wanted to remind us that this ache is why the earth was created! He felt this ache first and so much more stronly than we ever will. His heart ached, so He created a companion for Himself in the Church, His bride! We were given a small piece of Him in our hearts to remind us that He longs for us every day. You are His bride, and He wants you to remember that!