Looking Back......And Looking Up

                The Jerusalem Post has an article on its website right now about a young man....31 years old at the time....Daniel Lewin....an Israeli/American who had made aliyah to Israel....served in an IDF counterterrorism unit....and whose career was up to that time a brilliant mathematician and entrepreneur....and who was the first victim on 9/11....as he was a passenger of American Flight 11....stood up to confront the terrorists....and was attacked from behind and killed. There are as I type only a few hours left...in Israel....of Rosh Hashannah....the Jewish New Year....and beginning of the High Holy Days....the Ten Days of Repentance. Rosh Hashanna 2001 was six days after the attacks.
                 I've travelled over much of the world....but have not been in New York City since the New York World's Fair in 1964....odd....I passed by a dozen times but never went into the city. So....I have never been to Ground Zero. On September 10 of 2011....the tenth anniversary....as my wife and I attended the opening of the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville....and as we were walking the 'miles' back to our car....extremely tired but at times walking faster than the long line of cars exiting the Memorial....one car with two men in it stopped to offer us a seat....we thankfully accepted....and they gave us fruit drinks. They were two of the four children of Flight 93 passenger Joe Driscoll. It made a special day....a little more special.
                 It has been twenty-five years since 9/11....and it is still difficult to think back on the people in the planes....or jumping from the buildings....or rushing up the buildings trying to save others. It is also difficult to think back on the over 58 thousand Americans that died in Vietnam....or the 200,000/plus Vietnamese boatpeople who died at sea....trying to escape the horror coming from the north....or Iraq and Afghanistan....or the Sukkot massacre of October 7....2023....or the Christians being killed in Africa....or so many other horrors of war and killing.
                  There is a verse from God's Word that comes to mind as I look back....Luke 21:28....this from the NKJV...."Now when these things begin to happen....look up and lift up your heads....because your redemption draws near."