Mommy: Why are those people jumping from the building?
That day our lives changed. All of our lives changed. And we were each given the opportunity to choose whether we would cave into our fears. Or learn and grow towards love. 9/11 was scary. Incredibly scary. And THAT is exactly the point of terror. Terror is devised to terrorize others into submission. Terrorize others until they give into their fears. Freeze people into a state of nothingness. Fear wants us to remain voiceless. Fear wants us to hide and to remain invisible. Fear works to divide, destroy, and conquer.
Love and fear cannot co-exist.
9/11 caused me to stop, reflect, and to feel (all the feels). Further, I made a vow to myself. I would NOT teach my children to fear, hate, nor stay away from those culturally, religiously, financially, nor humanly labeled different than us. And I would teach my children to make a conscious decision to get to know those our culture may have taught us to fear. We would listen to the stories of the “others”. We would seek to understand.
9/11 catapulted me into a mindset in which I would raise my children to choose love.
As human beings, we have not loved perfectly. In fact, we have failed at love often. It has been in our failures that God has shown us HIS perfect love.
But of course. We are all children of God.
A God who loves perfectly. We are created in his image. The image of love. And as soon as we all begin to see US and THEM as brothers and sisters: ALL his children, exactly the same. THEN! We will begin to be world shakers. Love warriors. Truth tellers. Believers in the good of humanity. Because inherently, humanity was created to be love personified.
Terror did not win.
WE will not forget the lives lost that day.
Nor will we forget the lives lost in the days that followed. Not American lives nor the lives of the others. ALL the others. WE will not forget. WE will learn. WE will grow.
Love. WILL. WIN.
