Close to Tragedy

There have been some interesting coincidences in my life that have made me wonder. I've been close to national tragedies, but have not been directly affected by them.

April 1993 a tornado ripped through northeast Tulsa and Catoosa Oklahoma. We were living in Broken Arrow which is about 6 miles south of Catoosa. We could see a huge black cloud over the town. But we couldn't actually see the funnel as it was raining. A truck stop was leveled and about 100 homes were damaged or destroyed. Six people lost their lives.

April 19, 1995 my wife and I were driving from Tulsa to Oklahoma City to attend a restaurant show. We were not listening to the radio and paying attention what was going on in the outside world. As we were driving, we had people pass us like we were standing still. We even had emergency vehicles from various communities passing us. I couldn't understand why this was happening. Then I finally turned on the radio and heard that the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City had been bombed. The DJ on the radio said that volunteers were needed. We scraped our plans for the restaurant show and decided to go to a Wal-Mart and buy some work clothes. By the tome we made it to the outskirts of OKC, they were saying on the radio that they had plenty of volunteers and they were turning people away. Intrestingly enough, the convention center where we were going was less than a mile from the Murrah Building.

Three years later we moved from Tulsa to Denver. On a house hunting trip, we looked at a home that was within a mile from a Columbine High School. But for some reason we chose to live elsewhere. On April 20, 1999 with the massacre at Columbine, I marveled that we could have been there and my kids might have been involved. But they were not.

I worked for American Airlines in Tulsa from '86-'98. I then moved to Denver and worked for Galileo, a former company of United Airlines. All the work I did for them was for United. And since 2003 I have for for United Airlines. So I have 25 years of working for the airlines. The airlines are fierce competitiors. But they are also a close-knit family. I know many people who have worked for more than one airline.

When the terrorists attacked our country on September 11, 2001, I once again marveled that the two airlines that I worked for had lost airplanes. I'm not trying to make a big deal out of all of this. But it is ironic how close I've been to some national tragedies, but have not been personally affected by them.

Yesterday was the 10 year anniversary of 9/11. I was on my way to work and listening to the radio and they started talking about how the planes hit the World Trade Center. My eyes teared up. I couldn't believe that those emotions were still within me. I thought they were buried so deep that they would never re-surface. I was wrong. But I had to shake these of and go do my job.

I believe that God only gives us challenges that He knows we can handle. We are shaped by our challenges and how we respond to them. All of the challenges we face are like going through the refiner's fire to remove impurities. Will we melt in the face of adversity or rise to the occasion?