Not surprisingly God and suffering were prominent in the commemorations of 9/11. But missing from most was the observation that there were greater horrors in 2001. This is not to minimize the pain of 9/11 but to sharpen the problem of suffering.

I am writing you this letter so that I will never forget a single part of your short little life within me. Because of you I will never be the same. 

C. S. Lewis said, “...if the war has made me reconcile myself with the fact that there is sin in human beings, I shall no longer go with my head in the clouds, or buried in the sand like an ostrich, but I shall be wishing to face facts as they are.”

This is the most difficult day of my life. That apparent terrorist attacks could bring such death and destruction to unsuspecting people is absolutely unthinkable. Yet the numbers of the dead and wounded from these attacks will be extraordinary.

Therefore God will honor the work of his Son by raising your body from the dead, and you will use your body to glorify him forever and ever. That is why you have a body now. And that is why it will be raised imperishable.

The prospect of death has a way of getting our attention, of cutting to our very heart. Yet we also have a way of turning our eyes away from Death’s burning light to gaze again at the shadows of this world, stepping back away from death and ignoring the message it sends.