Blog on the Lillypad
Sunday, September 07, 2003
 | When our world changed forever Part 3
My birthday passed on September 4. There was no word from Moody Press at that point regarding VALKYRIES, but my experience in publishing had forewarned me that even after deciding to consider the novel, a publisher would probably take months to reach a decision. And I needed the time, too, for I had a lot of misgivings about putting my life's work about grace into the hands of a commercial Christian publisher. With the advent of the lamentable Left Behind series I had serious doubts that Christian publishing would ever climb back to any level of meaningfulness in fiction (but that was before I read Jamie Turner out of Bethany House). And things were still hot in the FFF. I was very unpopular there because of my constant message that IFB Fundamentalism is falling into gross corruption because of sin and pride. |
My church friend and I glanced at each other and went back inside. We went to the section of the gym where all the TV's hang for the treadmill walkers to watch. And as we walked up and got into view of the screens, I saw that ball of fire in the air, and heard the people around me exclaiming in fear and concern, and my dream hit me again like a wave that crashed against me. This was what the dream had been about. I went straight to the back of the gym, and I went on my knees, and then onto my face, and I prayed, "O God, You are righteous, and everything You do is righteous. And in righteousness You are judging us. Help me to help these people now, if this is the beginning of the end of the world. Save me from my fear."
Most people were calling home on cell phones, and we also left. As I got into my car, I decided to prepare for the worst. I drove to an ATM and withdrew three hundred dollars in cash, and then I went to the Kroger and picked up supplies. There were still people who didn't know what had happened. Something happened to me: I not only told people about the towers and the Pentagon; I started witnessing to them right off, but not in the way I'd been taught. I was worried for them---genuinely worried. I was truly afraid that they would face whatever was ahead without Christ. And for the first time in my life, I witnessed to complete strangers and never had one of them tell me to go away. I didn't win anybody to Christ, but everybody I spoke to seemed to sense that I really was very concerned for them, and they were all very gracious.
I got back into the car and drove over to my friend Lisa's house. Lisa has three children. By now, the ramifications of what I had dreamed were hitting me. I thought that this was just the beginning, and I wanted Lisa to take her children and go out to her parents' house in the country. But Lisa met me at the door with startling news. One of the towers of the World Trade Center had collapsed. We went inside, where the television was going, just in time to see the second tower collapse. Naive as I was, I assumed that they had been evacuated. To me it was a terrible sight of judgement from God, but I assumed that everybody was out. I had no real concept of how big those buildings were. Lisa told me there were people still inside them. She tried to give me some sense of how huge those buildings were.
I told Lisa about the dream, and I asked her to go out to the country where it would be safer, but she---gracious as everybody else had been gracious---told me that for the moment they would stay in Raleigh. The cameras switched briefly to the Pentagon, and they showed a tall column of black smoke over that American symbol of power and stability, and again, the reality of judgement from God, of reproach against us for trusting in ourselves hit me. Dread, but most of all sorrow, swept over me. I had never known how much I loved my country until that moment, when I saw her glory humiliated. But there was a touch of unreality in all of it, as though it were all a horrible movie.
I don't remember leaving. The next thing I recall was getting home and turning on the television and for the first time getting the whole, horrible story in order and realizing that---as Lisa had said----those buildings had still been occupied, and thousands were dead. I got on my knees and then onto my face and prayed again. In the first hours of the attacks, there were frantic orders for all planes to land, and news reports abounded of planes not yet accounted for. Most people expected more attacks. The rumor of a plane that had gone down in a field in Pennsylvania was not yet verified.
I asked God what He wanted me to do. I did not doubt then, nor have I ever doubted since then, that the troubling dream I'd had on the night of August 28th was about this horrible day. And based on the one precognitive dream I'd had before, I assumed that God had something He wanted me to do. But I didn't know what it was. I also knew then that up until that moment I had never truly cared about other people, not in the way that Christ can give us. It was a terrible moment, and there is an irony that in the hours when God sent such terrible judgement, He showed me how gracious He is, and how loathe to kill and strike down. In this terrible moment, Christians had not prepared themselves to love and to give because of our hard heartedness, and I was also guilty. So I repented, but the great weight of being completely unable to live the life of sacrifice to Christ made me almost despair. And again, the irony was that in my despair of myself, I saw that things were so bad that every small step towards Christ would be a great progress. And the most effective thing, I realized, was not to worry about how limited I am, but to keep asking God what He wanted me to do and to keep asking Him to enable me to do it. The Christian life is lived by faith; I also learned that to a new degree that day. We can never be righteous, but Christ has given Himself to His people to live and work through them and be their righteousness. Now I understood afresh how much I needed the life of Christ living through me. And I also understood that living and working through us is exactly what Christ does.
