Today marks 25 years since the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
For those of us old enough to remember that day, most can still tell you exactly where we were when the world seemed to change.
I was working on contract at a customer's site, hours from home. I had just walked into the break room to get a cup of coffee when I watched the second plane crash into the World Trade Center on the television in front of me.
At that moment, there was no question anymore about what we were witnessing.
America was under attack.
My wife at the time and my kids were hours away. In a time when nobody knew what might happen next, I wasn't there to protect them. I couldn't jump in the truck and immediately make everything safe.
All I could do was pray.
And then I had to get back to work. We had ships to reroute and delivery schedules to update. There really wasn't time to let it sink in fully.
Twenty-five years later, that day still weighs on me.
Nearly 3,000 people went to work, boarded airplanes, responded to an emergency, or simply started an ordinary Tuesday morning and never came home.
As Christians, we are taught to forgive.
But September 11 raises one of the hardest questions about forgiveness:
How do you forgive people whose hatred is so deep that they are willing to die simply to kill you?
I've come to understand that forgiveness doesn't mean forgetting.
It doesn't mean pretending evil wasn't evil.
It doesn't mean abandoning justice.
And it certainly doesn't mean blindly trusting those who still embrace an ideology that seeks our destruction.
Forgiveness means I don't have to carry the hatred.
Forgiveness is handing that debt over to God to deal with.
I can give the anger, the hurt, and the desire for vengeance to God.
Scripture says:
"Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." — Romans 12:19
There is freedom in realizing that justice ultimately belongs to Him.
So I will remember September 11, 2001.
I will remember the people who went to work and never returned home.
I will remember the firefighters, police officers, paramedics, military personnel, and ordinary Americans who ran toward danger instead of away from it.
I will remember that evil exists and that vigilance matters.
But I will also remember that hatred doesn't have to own my heart.
Twenty-five years later, I can still mourn.
I can still remember.
I can still stand against evil.
And I can work on forgiveness, not because what happened was forgivable, but because God never asked me to carry the burden of vengeance for the rest of my life.
I will trust Him with that.
I will trust Him with justice.
And I will trust Him with this country.
Never forget. Never surrender to hatred. Trust God with the rest.