A Prayer for September 11th

O God of all time…we find it hard to believe that it has been 4380 days, 12 years, since one day many of us will never forget, September 11, 2001.  A beautiful fall day with blues skies that seemed to go on forever, a day like any other, like this day, a day unlike any other.   Normal life was suddenly jolted into abnormality. Many truths we took for granted crumbled that morning when the planes came, the buildings shook and burned and crumbled and 2,980 of our fellow citizens died.  Stockbrokers and janitors, firefighters and police officers, the old and the young, people from our country and from 90 other countries.  And so this day we mourn, God, we remember our fallen.  We give thanks for their lives and trust that they are with you .  We pray for their loved ones who still are haunted by memory, hurt by loss, who grieve.  We pray God that we might not succumb to terror, then, now; that this fear would not, will not take us away from our work in life to always seek to love, even in the face of hate. To create with you a world where all people, all religions, all nations live in peace. To live lives of service to you and to our neighbors and to strangers.  Bless us God on this September 11^th.  Help us to always remember, never forget.  All this we ask in the name of hope, mercy, sacrifice and love, in you, for you, with you.  Amen.