This post is from one of my journal entries a few years back:
Today was a very good day. This morning I got up, not thinking very much about God. I began to catch up on reading my Business Week magazines as I haven’t read them in a while. As I read the magazine from this past September 11th, I found an article in there about one of the companies that had the most people die in the world trade center attack and that prompted me to go to the internet to sort of relive those moments. And I came to a very chilling audio clip of a man who was trapped on the 105th floor of the North Tower. He was on a call with 911 pleading with them to send help right away. He knew that he was in danger, but he did not know that those would be the last 4 minutes and 54 seconds of his life as the North Tower would come crashing down. There’s something about a dying man’s last words that are chilling. At this point all masks are torn off, and we can glimpse into the heart of the real man. What I heard was terror. Absolute terror at the prospect of dying. He said that he was not ready to die. He said “we’re young men, and we’re not ready to die”. Towards the end of the call his voice was noticeably becoming more desperate, more frantic. His voice had a really eerie tone to it as of one who is terrified to the core of their soul. He knew that he was in a predicament over which he had no control. It was in God’s hands and he did not know him. He said “Tell God to send the wind from the west”. He was suffocating in the smoke. He continued to plead to the lady on the line for help, but deep down he must have known that his pleading was futile. The lady asked for the name of another person that was in his office. He spelled the name out exhaustingly, frighteningly. Then we hear what sounds like an explosion in the background, and the caller screams at the top of his voice, “Oh God, Oh!…” The call is terminated…
This call, to me, was a gift of God this morning, because it brought me face to face with death. This morning I looked death in the eye, and I could begin to feel the fear and terror that that man on the 105th floor of the north tower felt. Death became very real to me, and I knew that death would be my destiny at some point. And what are we to do? Death is an enemy, and one that we cannot overcome by any earthly means. I kneeled down at my couch and trembled before the Lord. “Lord, you are awesome, and your wrath is terrifying, and who can stand up to you? But your word says that Jesus died on the cross and bore your wrath for us…for us…” I broke down into tears, and I sobbed for a few minutes as I was hit in the face like a ton of bricks with the love of God. All of the sudden the fear left and was replaced with a love so unimaginable, so overflowing, so transforming and uplifting, that I was filled with joy and awe and with love toward God that despite the great wrath of God, we have been given a Savior so that if we trust in him, our eternal destiny becomes life rather than death.
Afterwords I went for a walk around the condo community. I came back and read some more on the internet. I came across an article about another man trapped in the South Tower on the 81st floor, just above the impact zone. Only his story was different. He was a believer in the Lord. He saw the plane coming from his office window, he ducked under his desk with the bible he read that morning lying on top. The plane crashed through part of his office. Everything around him came crashing down, he was trapped in a pile of rubble. He prayed to God to take over. He asked God to see his wife and kids again. Just then he saw a light. It turned out to be the flashlight of another office worker. The office worker told the trapped man that he would have to bust down the drywall in order to be saved. With unnatural strength the trapped man broke free of the pile of rubble and began to punch the wall. He broke a hole in the wall and with the other man’s help was able to get out of the office. They began a decent through the stairwell that happened to be the only exit out of the building as the others were severed by the plane. They reached the ground safely and just a few minutes after they left the tower it collapsed.
Lord thank you for the stories you gave me this morning. Thank you for bringing me face to face with death and demonstrating your love and victory in the midst of it. I love you and may your name be praised amongst all the nations, in Jesus name, Amen.
Caleb