I am an American.

Actually, I am many things,

but above and beyond all

else, I suppose I am a God-fearing

American. I use God-fearing with the understanding that fear means I have

some degree of understanding of where I, and my country, would be without

God.

With such a declaration I am

not saying I am afraid of God, I only fear where I would be without His

love, grace, mercy, guidance without His interactive Presence in my life

and in the lives and hearts of those who lead my country.

I am also a wife, mother, grandmother,

daughter, sister, friend, and I was a practicing nurse until 1986 when

I started writing.

In recent hours and days I

have longed to do something to help those affected by the destruction

that has occurred in New York and Washington and beyond. I have wanted,

ached, longed, even cried to do something.

Not "anything," but

something. And so I have prayed.

In times past I would have

thought that prayer would be too small a thing to do. I would have been

convinced that some action on my part had to occur in order for me to

feel like I'm doing something. But yesterday, I recalled once more "This

Present Darkness," a book I read a decade or so ago, by Frank Peretti,

a former Catholic priest.

In writing about the ever-raging

battles between good and evil, the author quite successfully drove home

the point that many battles are won, and lost, in, through, and by prayer.

He never said that actual fighting or real visible battles do not or should

not, occur. He just said, in the end, that prayer is the key to real victory.

So, I take some comfort in

knowing as I pray that I am doing something. Not "anything."

But something.

And then as the daze, the shock,

starts to lift at this 48 hour time line, I remember that I also write

and so I am sitting before my keyboard, seeking to release some of the

pain that rumbles and roars around in my head and heart. It is misery

that prayer does not seem to erase.

On September 12, as I listened

to the doctors and paramedics lament the fact that there were no patients,

"no patients to help," my heart broke. I am, of course, referring

to those on the scene in lower Manhattan where the World Trade Center

and companion buildings collapsed and were still collapsing.

They spoke of how they are

trained to help, how they had come to help patients, people, individuals

who lay hidden from them, beyond their help, in the rubble. My heart continues

to ache for these tireless emergency workers who never give up.

Then shortly thereafter, I

realized September 11 was 9-11.

911...

But my mind did not stop there.

I suddenly realized the first plane to hit the first building was Flight

11 and I wondered if it had been programmed by some deranged mind to strike

around 9 a.m. Again 911. And then the calls began to go out. All the 911

calls.

Actually, the 911 calls had

started going out, before the first impact, from the passengers on the

planes themselves.

911.

To no avail.

What kind of evil could be

behind such atrocity? Once more I prayed. Constantly I pray. And I sing

softly under my breath. To myself. To any lost or wandering soul that

can hear me.

What song do I sing? "To

God be the glory, great things He hath done." And I am amazed that

those are the words which constantly emanate from my lips, my heart, my

soul. Where do they come from? How can they be appropriate just now?

No sane man or woman would

credit God with what we witnessed on the morning of 9-11-01. For that

moment in time, evil ruled, or thought it did.

On the other hand, any believer,

and perhaps many previous unbelievers, may be tempted to credit God with

what has happened since. After all, we Americans are a people who boast

that we are "one nation, under God, indivisible."

At this time in our lives we

are at least being reminded that our forefathers had the wherewithal to

make that claim. From the polls on which we have come to depend far more

than we profess to depend on a true and all-knowing God we learn that

we are indeed becoming "one" again.

Under God? That remains to

be seen.

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