On that day I remember the newscaster saying that this was a day that will go down in the history books and never be forgotten. Everyone old enough to remember, will remember where they were and what they were doing on September 11, 2001.

I certainly remember.

I was 20 years old, in college and a paid nursery worker at my church.

That Tuesday morning, Brooke and I (yes, the same Brooke that I have asked you to pray for many times!) were at church keeping the nursery for Tuesday Morning Ladies Bible Study.

Someone mentioned that something bad had happened in New York. At the time, I didn’t know how bad it really was.

When it was time to leave, I went home and turned on the television.

It was probably around noon.

I literally was glued to the television screen for the next twelve hours straight. I could not turn it off. The shock and horror was all-consuming. It was unfathomable and incomprehensible.

Finally, around midnight I had to turn it off and try to go to bed. Sure I could “turn it off” with a push of a button, but I will never forget thinking that even as I turned the TV off, the horrors continued.

Innocent men, women and children had lost their lives that morning at the hand of evil terrorists attacks.

It was hard to wrap my mind around that.

Ten years later, those TV images are still imprinted in my memory and forever will be.

It truly was a day that will never be forgotten and, unfortunately, terrorists attacks in the name of hate for a certain group of people for whatever reason, are still going on today.

Last Friday night, I shared that I escaped the confines of my house and went to my first social event since Sweet Pea’s birth.

I went to my brother’s church because Kay “Kishkush” Wilson, a friend of my brother’s and the victim of an unfathomable terrorist attack on December 18th, 2010, was there playing the jazz piano and sharing a little about what God has shown her since she was attacked.

I sat there mesmerized by every word she said that night.

The way she related her experiences to jazz piano and the little bit she shared about how she is processing and dealing with the trauma afterwards, drew me in and I wished I could have just one day, or just one hour, to sit and talk to her.

What happen to her is…there are literally no words.

December 18th, 2010, Kishkush and her friend, Kristine Luken, were hiking along the Israel National Trail when Kishkush noticed two men crouched in the thicket below where Kishkush and Kristine sat enjoying the scenery of that beautiful December day.

Kishkush has written a small excerpt about that day that she says will be the prologue of a book, should she ever write one. My brother had a copy and one afternoon I sat down and read all the little booklet in one siting.

There Kishkush describes in detail what happen that day.

I am not one to watch horror movies, but as I read that little book, I kept thinking to myself, “This is horror a movie, except, what happened in this book isn’t just made up in some producer’s head in Hollywood. This actually happened to a human being.”

It is unreal and unfathomable that one human being could do what he did to another human being. In fact, Kishkush states that her attackers have “lost within them the image of God – the divine trait that uniquely distinguishes human beings from the rest of His creation”.

As Kishkush is describing what happened on that horrific day, she writes, “We stood side by side, barefoot, bound and gagged. The late afternoon sunlight streamed through the pine trees. The day was wrapping up. I stood there and helplessly pleaded with the sun. I didn’t want her to set. I wanted her to stay up and let me enjoy her beauty again and again and again. I knew that I would never again see the light of day.” (page 13)

At that time, they did not know the motive of these men and what they wanted to do. They stood there at the mercy of evil, surrounded by the beauty of God’s creation.

These men bound and gagged Kishkush and Kristine and then stabbed them with a butcher’s knife multiple times. Kishkush played dead. Kristine let out a moan as the men were leaving. The men came back and stabbed them both again. 

Kishkush lay there literally listening to her friend die. Kishkush just knew she was about to die, too. But even through all the horror, Kishkush noticed the beautiful blue sky and heard birds singing.

Her last mission on earth was a burning desire to get up and walk back to the main path. They had gone off the path to see a very beautiful view that you could see in the particular place that they were at when the attackers found them.

Kishkush wanted her body to be found so that friends and family would know what had happened to her and Kristine.

She walked one kilometer and 200 meters and stumbled upon some people sitting at a picnic bench. She had made it. Now she could lay down and die.

But then she heard sirens and people’s panicked voices shouting for help. People were trying to stop the bleeding and calling for a helicopter. The last sentence of Kishkush’s little book says, “In the distance I heard the wailing of the approaching ambulance, and over its sirens I faintly heard, once again, the songs of the little birds.” (page 20)

Kishkush survived. Kristine did not.

Kishkush spoke again at Wesley’s church during the Sunday morning service. I went with Wesley to hear her speak again.

Kishkush says that people always ask her two things: 1) Where was God on that day? and 2) Why did this happen?

I think those are the heart cries of America during the aftermath of 9/11.

Where was God when airplanes flew into the towers, taking hundreds upon hundreds of innocent people’s lives?

And why did such a tragedy happen?

Kishkush’s answers about her attack are profound and probably not what you expect.

I think her answers apply to the attack on America on September 11, 2001.

I will share them tomorrow.

- Elaine