Nine eye-opening questions

Here are nine questions for you 13 days before 9-11:
• Where was God during the 9-11 terror attacks?
• Where was He when thousands of innocents were dying?
• How could He allow this to happen to His children?

Here are three more questions for you:
• Was this a classic struggle between good and evil?
• Between man and man or our God and theirs?
• Between forces of hate and forces of love?

Three final questions for you:
• Was God in the hearts of the first responders?
• Was God with the brave people on United 93?
• Were they carrying out his plan to save others?

Your answers and mine may be different.
What’s important is that we think about them.
That we open our hearts and minds to the answers.
That we draw what lessons we can from them.
Because answers will come to us in the coming days.

I invite you to share your thoughts on 9-11’s lessons.
We will publish them in our 9-11 commemorative.
Email them to JerryBellune@yahoo.com
Keep the dialogue going. It’s how we learn.

The spirit of America

One of the inspiring stories of 9-11-01 was United 93.
This was the flight that did not reach its target.
We don’t know if it was the Capitol or the White House.
But we do know brave Americans on board prevented it.



United 93 was flying from Newark to San Francisco.
Four hijackers stormed the cockpit and took control.
They commanded passengers to remain calm.
With a bomb on board, they were returning to Newark.
Passengers began calling home on their cell phones.
Their loved ones told them about the World Trade Center.
Passengers quickly concluded this was a suicide mission.



Todd Beamer and others decided to retake control.
They stormed the cockpit, forcing the hijackers’ hands.
The Boeing 757 flipped over and crashed.
It landed in a reclaimed Pennsylvania strip mine.
All on board lost their lives in the battle for control.
But they undoubtedly prevented many more deaths.



What makes this special is the spirit they showed.
The hijackers were not to complete their deadly mission.
I like to think of this as the “spirit of America”.
We are a free people and we want all people to be free.
We willingly shoulder many others’ burdens.
To those whom much is given, much is expected.



There are thousands of such 9-11 stories of bravery.
You undoubtedly know many of them yourself.
I invite you to share at least one of them with us.
We will publish a commemorative edition September 8.
We will publish your story in it and email you a copy
Email your story to chronicleads@windstream.net
Attach your photo if you want us to publish it, too.



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