I wanted to take a moment to consider 17 years ago. I went to work 17 years ago like it was any other day. I was in sales for a company called S&D Coffee. I really loved that job and found it meaningful and with a lot of opportunities to grow in a career path. DeAnne and I had been married at that time close to two years. She had a great job with New Hanover County Health Department. We were making more money then we had ever in our life and things were looking really good.
I found myself that morning staring at a TV screen at a customer’s office. I sat there staring —– because I didn’t know what else to do. I was staring because I was seeing planes flying into buildings, and buildings falling down, and fire and dust and ash and despair. I was seeing something that didn’t make any sense to my understanding of the world.
I was very involved with a wonderful church and of course we grieved together. We grieved over the tragedy, and the loss of life, and the babies that would never see their parents again. But I had to do something more. I knew that my life could never be the same. I knew that I couldn’t just continue to live this life of trying to make all the money I could. I had to do something different.
On the afternoon of September 11th, 2001, if I had run into a military recruiter, I would have signed up immediately without consulting DeAnne. I wanted some sort of vengeance and I wanted to be part of the action in regards to making this right. Instead of signing up for the military, I started to talk to people that I trusted. I talked to my brother (who was in the military at the time) and I talked to my brother-in-law (who was a chaplain at the time). I started talking to them about this idea of military chaplaincy. I started doing research and realized I needed more schooling in order to pursue chaplaincy.
This started me on a path where I looked at ministry as an option —— which has lead me to where I am now. Like I said, I had to do something different with my life. And God took that and made something beautiful. I believe the Lord can take all things and make them into something good —— including 9-11, including despair, including my so-called career path —— God can make it good.
I cannot go by a day like today without reflecting. And that is what I do today. I reflect on the fact that the Lord has taken a person like me and used me as an instrument of God’s grace. I am not my own —— instead it is only because of Jesus I can be a person that is on the streets of Wilmington being a pastor of a church without walls. I pray that God will continue to take the messes that we all make, and reconfigure them for the good.