The photos I submitted were of a view straight down West
Broadway in the middle of the street looking in the direction of the two
towers, a kind of before and after taken only a few years apart, but the feeling is that of a lifetime away. The first photo was taken right after a blizzard that shut down the streets
and subways. It was a really joyous time, even though the day was still gray from
the storm, and when I took the photo it was later in the day when I’d come home
from work. People were out walking in the middle of the streets, and I took my
camera and stood right in the middle of West Broadway, something that would
never be possible any other time I thought, and snapped a picture of the two
towers, two buildings that to me always looked so powerful and elegant, a true
symbol of New York City, and that view was a perfect one, one that normally would
not be possible to see from that angle. West Broadway was a busy street, with
traffic coming from uptown and downtown and across Canal Street from the East and
West sides and the Holland Tunnel traffic funneling in and out as well. In
those days it had just become one of the hottest streets in Manhattan,
something that’s only continued as time has gone on. But for that one day, when
the blizzard shut down the streets, I could stand in the middle of West
Broadway and take a picture of a lifetime.
On the day after September 11, when I woke up in the
morning, everything was eerily quiet. I hadn’t really slept – the day before
had been a nightmare of a day even for those of us who were far enough away to
have not been physically touched. We could smell the smell of the burning
buildings and we didn’t know what was happening in our world. Anything could
happen because something unimaginable already had. When I woke up that morning,
something told me to get my camera and walk out into the middle of the street
again. This time the day was so beautiful – a perfectly beautiful blue sky,
with that perfect golden early autumn light, but the acrid smell of burning
metal and cables and wires and God only knows what else was still in the air –
that smell would last for months, and there are times when I still imagine I
can smell it now. When I got out into the middle of the empty and deserted
street and raised my camera, all I saw was an empty skyline full of the bluest
blue of the sky. There’s a puff of what looks to be a white cloud, but
strangely is lower in the sky. It’s really the smoke of the fires that
continued to burn for many, many days.
I had seen the towers fall, and had heard the first plane
fly over my apartment building and crash. At first I thought it was a smaller
prop plane that had an accident on a much smaller building and I thought, wow,
those poor people, but then I heard some men working on a building next door
start screaming – nothing phases those guys, so I knew something much bigger
had happened. I went up on my roof and I saw the whole thing unfold. A neighbor
of mine later gave me a photo he’d taken from his roof just behind mine. You can
see me standing there, and I look frozen in shock. You can’t see my face, you just see my back, and
though I am very small in the image, the terror is clear in the rigid lines of
my body.
At the time I was nowhere near born again, but I remember
saying to people that out of something so bad something really good must come.
I remember having this idea that where there was great evil, that great good
would come because of it. That great good would have to come from it, because
the evil could not be the last word. It would be five years later when I’d
learn the scripture, “Where sin abounded, grace did abound much more.” (Romans
5:20) It was the scripture that the name of the first church I attended was
based on, the church where I was baptized and where I began to learn what it
meant to walk with God.
John 1:1-5 tells us, “In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been
made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light
shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
I remember thinking when I was first born again that now everything
would be light and life all the time. That there would be no darkness any more in
my life. And in a way that’s true, but not in the way that I expected it to be.
There will always be darkness, but when we know Him who is the light, His light
will always be able to shine through the darkest of darkness, and bring our focus back
to that place of light. Jesus tells us in Matthew 5:14, “You are the light of
the world.” He says this right after the Sermon on the Mount, where He has
turned the whole reasoning of human beings upside down. “Blessed are the poor
of spirit, because theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the
earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will
be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the
pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they
will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of
righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people
insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you
because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for
in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:3-12) How can we rejoice and be glad in times where it seems that evil abounds? How can we feel blessed when we are mourning, or persecuted or feeling weak in our spirit? It makes no sense in an earthly way, but the way of God is not the way of the world.
Jesus has a way of turning our world upside down. Just as I
knew at the time when the buildings fell on September 11 that something of
great good must come from that, that is exactly what did happen. In the days
and months after those first terrible hours, there were such outpourings of
love and mercy and kindness in New York City, an outpouring that I had never
seen or thought possible. On a personal level, that was the beginning of my
beginning to search for meaning in my life, a search that led me finally to
know that Jesus Christ is Lord. Out of that great darkness of those terrible hours, I began to hunger and thirst for righteousness,
and I was filled, and all of the rest has followed.
My world was turned upside down by Jesus, in a way that I
can’t even recognize the past any more as my own. I look back on things I wrote
and things I thought and things I did, and I don’t know who that person was. It is very strange
because there are times now when I’m not sure who this person that I am is
either, because I am constantly being changed and renewed and healed. When we are born again we begin the process of living life anew. It is like being a baby all over again, and going through stages of growth and
learning and changing. But just as dogs and cats have a different way of
counting years than humans do, when we are born again, the years of growth are
exponential in comparison to actual years. When I look back to seven years ago,
there is a big difference in the way that I walk now. And even a year ago I
know that I was very different than I am today. That is one of the miracles of
our walk with God. He makes those changes without our knowing it, but then
shows us when we’ve grown just how much we have.
Blessings,
Jannie Susan
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