Posted September 11, 2026
On this day twenty-five years ago, the skies were clear over New York City as people went about their morning. Midterm elections were on the horizon; many were worried about the economy; Hurricane Erin was churning in the Atlantic; Barry Bonds was chasing baseball’s single-season home run record.
When reports came of a passenger jet crashing into the World Trade Center’s North Tower at 8:46 a.m., I assumed it was a terrible accident. When the second plane hit the South Tower at 9:03 a.m., we knew we were under attack. The third plane flew into the Pentagon at 9:37 that morning. At 10:02 a.m., the fourth plane crashed in an empty field in Pennsylvania, likely headed for either the White House or the US Capitol.
In all, 2,977 innocent people died that day, victims of the worst terrorist attack in American history. Their deaths stir emotions like no other day in my memory.
Those who died on 9/11 were people just like you and me. Husbands and wives and parents and children and grandparents and grandchildren. Even at the Pentagon, less than a third of the 184 people who were killed by the terrorists were active-duty military personnel.
Members of our military choose to serve our country. When they die defending our nation, we grieve their loss and admire their valor but understand their choice.
By contrast, when civilians are attacked by terrorists, we feel ourselves in their number. No one on September 10, 2001, knew that the next day would forever be known simply as 9/11. Maybe something will happen tomorrow that will cause 9/12 to become as infamous. What happened to them could happen to any of us.
So we watch the footage and look at the images of that horrible morning, then we want this day to be over. We want to remember those who died so tragically and then resume our lives.
But for the thousands of Americans whose lives were shattered when their loved ones were murdered, there is no remembering and moving on. The husbands and wives whose last words were never intended to be their last words, the children whose memories of their parents are enshrouded by their terrible deaths, all those whose hearts were broken that day and have never fully healed—this article is for them.
And for the rest of us when the day comes when we grieve as they grieve today.
There are times when death enters our lives as a welcome friend. When elderly and infirm parents lose all memory and engagement with life, when a patient is terminally ill and in terrible pain, none of us would want them to live forever as they live now.
But the rest of the time, death comes as a hated enemy. It wrenches our loved ones from us, stealing their future and ours. It sears our souls and scars our days. Alfred, Lord Tennyson could write, “’Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all,” but we’re not so sure.
And yet, we are.
If we loved them then, we love them now. Love is not dependent on location. I love my wife just as much when she is in another room as when she is in the room with me. All she has meant to me over these years, she means to me today.
If your loved one is in the other “room” today, you can reflect upon all the gifts that remain from your years together. All the ways they made you, you. All the joys and tears and blessings and struggles that live in your heart now.
Because every life is God’s gift to the world, every gift from every life is God’s gift to us (cf. James 1:17). A day like today is a day not only to grieve those we lost but to give thanks for what we can never lose. To remember them and to thank God for them.
“Gratitude” and “grace” come from the same root word. The more we experience the latter, the more we should embrace the former.
You’re no doubt familiar with the Serenity Prayer by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr: “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” I saw a sign the other day that responded, “I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.”
If you lost a loved one to terrorists on 9/11, pray for jihadists around the world to come to Christ. Pray for the Muslims in your community to know your Lord, then help answer your prayer with personal outreach. More Muslims than ever before are turning to Jesus; pray for this awakening to advance.
When you grieve in other ways, ask the Lord to show you practical ways to change what you cannot accept. And look for others who grieve with whom to share your compassion. “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15).
Wounded healers are the best healers.
Shel Silverstein wrote, “There are no happy endings. Endings are the saddest part.” The apostle John heard a voice from heaven that disagreed: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord” (Revelation 14:13).
Christians do not “lose” Christians who die. We know precisely where they are, though we can only begin to imagine how “blessed” they are. As I said of my mother after her death, they are home and they are well.
As they are with God, so God is with us. When John Preston lay dying, friends asked him if he was afraid of death. The old Puritan whispered, “No, I shall change my place, but I shall not change my company.”
Jesus said of those who trust in him, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:28). Let’s trust our loved ones to those sheltering hands, and ourselves with them, to the glory of God.
“All the glories of midday are eclipsed by the marvels of sunset.” —Charles Spurgeon
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