then on Tuesday...

JJ had recently turned 16. We'd been looking for a car for him and we must admit (easily verified if you know us here in Sunny...) he had found the perfect one! It was an old Porsche, however through much research he found one for sale by the original owner and with very low miles. Wow! We all felt so blessed. He found it on Friday and needed to transfer the money before we could pick it up ~ so we had to wait until Monday. I'm sure it had been the longest weekend of his life so far.

Just the Thursday before, I'd had a bad situation at work. My office had been broken into and lots of personal papers were stolen. That's a hard thing. And even harder was not understanding those who commented, "Well, at least they didn't take anything of value." Oh my goodness, oh my goodness. Yes, I was grateful I hadn't been there when the robbery occurred, but was frustrated that the police seemed to minimize this invasion of my privacy as well. How could they not come in to take fingerprints??

After a crazy couple of days changing lots of account numbers, and worrying about things, life was back to normal. Our hearts were so happy as we took JJ down to get his very own first car. There were the trips here and there for no need at all ~ just because.

DJ gets up quite early and on that Tuesday he was ready to head out the door when I heard the radio announcer say fairly quietly, "There seems to be a plane crash in New York." I bounced up and got the tv on as fast as possible. Fast enough to see crash number two. DJ was leaving and JJ was ready to drive that fabulous car to school when we all realized...our world was broken. We saw the horror unfold over Washington and words just wouldn't come for any of us. We just sat there. All day. Silent.

My sweet little mother was visiting our friends out in the Midwest. Now, words most definitely can not explain how distraught she was that week. She was ready to get on the Amtrak to come home to Sunny. To hear the airports were closed! Now, Mother had often discussed terrorists plots and the likelihood that we were in the middle of such a horrid thing had been at the forefront of her mind immediately.

Our little family was just shell-shocked and speechless. The new car didn't really even get discussed and the lost papers were completely out of our minds.

Yes, when we think back to those days, it is still hard to imagine real people could have conceived such a horrible chain of events. I also think of how packed our church was on that Tuesday evening as we opened it for a time of prayer. I haven't really heard of churches opening up for prayer services tomorrow night. But I'll stop and ask God to be with those families. I'll ask Him to be with the Moms or Dads who miss their kids Dads and Moms or Brothers or Sisters or Grandmas or Grandpas. And I'll ask Him to be with the families who have a part of their soul far away in Iraq or Afghanistan or Fort Bragg... And I'll remember that Tuesday. It seems like yesterday.

Please protect them all, God.