Today marks twenty-five years since the towers fell.
Twenty-five years since a field in Pennsylvania became sacred ground. Twenty-five years since the Pentagon burned and a nation stood still and watched smoke rise against a September sky that had, until that morning, been so unbearably blue.
I remember where I was. Most of us who were old enough do. That kind of memory doesn’t fade the way ordinary days fade. It burns itself into the soul and stays there, sharp and clear, long after other things blur.
A quarter century is a long time. Long enough for babies born that day to have children of their own. Long enough for the raw wound to become a scar. But scars still tell a story. They still mean something happened here.
I think about the firefighters who ran up the stairs while everyone else ran down. I think about the passengers on Flight 93 who said “let’s roll” and gave their lives so that others might live. I think about the mothers and fathers who kissed their children goodbye that morning with no idea it would be the last time. Nearly three thousand souls. Nearly three thousand families whose lives split into before and after.
Scripture doesn’t shy away from grief like this. The Psalms are full of it. “Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord” (Psalm 130:1). The people of God have always known what it is to watch the ground give way beneath them, to ask where God was when the smoke was rising and the sirens wouldn’t stop.
And here is what I have come to believe, twenty-five years on. God was there. Not distant, not absent, but present in the firefighter who went back for one more person. Present in the strangers who carried each other down eighty flights of stairs. Present in the churches that filled that week with people who didn’t know what else to do but pray. Present in the small, quiet acts of love that always rise up in the middle of the worst days, like light finding a way through rubble.
“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18). That verse was true on September 11, 2001, and it is still true today, for whatever ground has given way beneath you this year.
Remembering isn’t about staying in the wound. It’s about honoring what was lost while trusting that God is still writing the story, still present in the ashes, still able to bring beauty from what was broken. That’s not a shallow hope. It’s the same hope that held people together in the days after, and it’s the hope we’re invited to carry now, for this world and for whatever comes.
So today, I remember. I pray for the families who still carry an empty chair at the table. I give thanks for the courage that met that day. And I hold on to the promise that grief and hope can live in the same heart, because they always have, for as long as God’s people have walked through hard things and found Him faithful on the other side.
A Porch Prayer
Lord, we remember today. We hold the names and the faces and the empty places at so many tables. Be close to the brokenhearted, just as You promised. Comfort the families still living with this loss every single day, not just today. Give courage to those who run toward danger to save others, then and now. And help us carry both grief and hope in the same heart, trusting that You are present even in the ashes, and that You are still writing beauty into broken places. Amen.
Where were you twenty-five years ago today? I’d love to hear your story in the comments, and how you’re holding this anniversary in your heart.
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