September 11, 2011
Remember how you tried to restore relationships, build stronger ties, put your affairs in order, get your life centered on what really matters, let trivial matters and resentments be, not taking a single day for granted, wanting to cherish every moment with everyone around us? Don't let the urging in your hearts, the voice that spoke to you ever become silent, Remember again!
Looking back
Taking a trip down memory lane I think about where I was at that time. I was trying to recover from all the previous tragedies in my life and daily I was using some kind of drug to numb me from the memories of my past that haunted me. I was in darkness, believing I was cursed, just trying to make it through each day. I had gotten myself into a situation by all the bent up anger at the life of molestation, rape, physical violence, and rejection I had endured. Someone I knew was exhibiting pedophile tendencies and actions. Me a group of young kids he had tried to exploit decided to take revenge. I wanted to beat him to a pulp but we chose a path of vandalism instead and mischief. This wasn’t my first time at revenge I was accustomed to it. It was the main emotion I saw since childhood. My family is infected with resentment and revenge. I love them all and they know who they are, I need not mention their names and I was one as well.
I was in a real bad place financially though I worked 60+ hours a week. It becomes expensive trying to restart after you’ve lost everything you own. I had been tossed so to and fro in life that I had lost everything I owned about half a dozen times by then. I was being exploited by someone at this time as well. You see, the only thing that stopped me at that time from purchasing the world to give to someone if they’d only love me was money.
It meant nothing to me and I gave it away freely and generously to any cause because I just desired to be loved.
My eyes were opened to how short mans life is. I wanted to go to any length to get my relationship with my family restored. I would forgive. Would they be willing to forgive me? I would just make myself available.
Remember, I thought I was cursed. I wasn’t sure that I wasn’t going straight to hell when I died or not. I believed God didn’t want me. I began attending church again. I had completely abandoned the idea of being Catholic because I have some difficulties with some practices that seem to border on idol worship to me. I also before I ever knew God really loved me, believed the Bible was the breath of God. Most of my family will disagree with me on this.
I believed God did what he did for his elect since the beginning of time and I just wasn’t someone anyone loved much less God. I knew he was there. He showed himself to me in many different ways at different times. His presence always comforted me. Yet I had been through so much I didn’t believe I would ever know true safety. I slept with one eye open always ready for fight or flight. Yet 9/11 told me to let it go. It was also scary for me because back in 1993 I had a vision of the twin towers burning while reading my Bible.
I was studying Biblical Prophesy at the time. I had a friend who was immersed in cultic behavior and Biblical History and he was trying to persuade me some new thoughts on Scripture that stumped him and likely drove him mad. I haven’t seen him since 99. It’s as if he is off the map technologically also.
Greg was studying demonology as well as witchcraft and areas of the Bible most Biblical Scholars leave alone.
My faith was not shaken on who God was or that the Bible was truth. However I was under severe Demonic attack during this time. In fact from my childhood I have been under a severe Demonic attack. They appeared in many forms, but I saw them at different times in my life. I also saw some of Gods soldiers too. I have believed since childhood that I was going to serve God. I zealously tried to prove my allegiance to God as a child but my sin kept me an outsider. Some would say the things that happened to me determined my fate and they did to a certain extent but each time I retaliated instead of turning the other cheek, each time I sought revenge in some devious way, every time I wished someone dead or said it, every time I wished myself dead, every thing I ever stole in my life, every lie I told, each time I gave into lust, it kept me an outsider.
I saw severed relationships with God and with family, and church. Today some things remain severed but I still have hope. I still thirst for God and time with him. I try and involve God in my everyday tasks in worship listening to music and praising him always. Sometimes this becomes difficult and I still fall 100 times, but I get back up, and I keep on trying. God delivered me from addiction. He got me out of the darkness and despair; he delivered me from a life doomed for death and gave me a new purpose. It was on the day of 9/11 that I looked back up again and sought to see something beyond my current despair. I began to get ready for my end. What legacy would I leave? Could I really make a difference somehow? I must try. I must give it my all not to let my flame go out and die but seek the one who keeps it lit.
It doesn’t seem like 10 years. It is true time does just fly by the older you get.
Let us never forget the voice we heard in the tragedy!
Michael Smith
