The media is calling it the largest terrorist attack since 9/11.  I asked myself a question: “Is there a difference in my reaction to this attack versus the 9/11 attack?”

I remember where I was when the first plane struck the Towers.  I was at work and my Mom called and told me about the “accident”.  I hung up the phone and thought “how could the pilot have missed an entire building?”  Then I learned about the second plane.  And then, I knew.

But the real horror struck me when the building fell.  Until then, I had hoped for more tales of survival even as people leaped to their death rather than face the fires.  As the buildings fell in a scene reminiscent of the movie Independence Day, all hope was loss.

I describe my feeling in this way: It felt as if a thousand candles were simultaneously extinguished.  It felt that the impact of a meteor striking the moon and leaving a jagged scar in the surface.  Like a rock hitting a windshield and watching all the little cracks spread outward that are so much worse than the initial strike.

Do I feel that way today?  Between then and now, there have been so many tragedies.  Shootings in movie theaters, schools, and malls.  Planes crashing or disappearing or being shot out of the sky.  But shouldn’t I still feel the same horror?

At this point I could veer off into a number of direction, both social and political, but I won’t.  Because they both pale in comparison to a larger implication. An implication that applied equally to the victims of 9/11 and Sandy Hook, and Columbine, and   Malaysia Flight 37, and Club Pulse; to the fleeing Syrian refugees and undocumented Mexicans and you and me.

We are all mortal.

I would add that we are all built for immortality.  (Please see my other posts dedicated to the Gospel of Jesus.)  To those of us who put our faith in Jesus, any loss of life should break our hearts because it surely breaks our Father’s.  More specifically, any unsaved loss of life should break our heart.  What are we doing about it?  In the final analysis, what we have done or not done to the least of our fellow human beings, we have done…or not done to Christ.

Be Blessed

References:  2 Peter 3:9, 1 Timothy 2:3-4, Luke 23:43, Hebrews 9:27, Matthew 25:34-40, Matthew 28:19-20