“It’s the nature of the world that most people have moved on, but the people directly involved with 9/11, for them, twice a day it’s 9/11.” – Robert Reeg, former FDNY firefighter.

In life, every man makes choices, then those choices turn around and make him. That is the story of my life and the lives of others as well. The currency of time once spent can never be regained but it is “how” you spend it that counts. No, you cannot put time in a bottle, but there is a savings account called “eternity”. Someone once said, “that which we do in this life will echo into eternity”. I believe that. You see, when we realize that we are a special creation of God — a personal God who respects our freewill choices — we can find a measure of comfort in all that happens. We may never understand why God allows certain evils to occur, the loss of our loved ones, or wars but we all know that someday at the end of time He will make all things right. Therefore, we truly must learn to walk by faith and not by sight, which is what I have been doing and trying to do my whole life. They say life is an adventure, I’LL say! But I never knew how true that would be in my case. I remember telling my wife right before we got married, “Buckle-up! It’s going to be a bumpy ride!” Indeed, those words have proved prophetic. In this short article, I want to share with you the effects 9-11 had on my life. I will reserve the details of the event for another time.

Many years ago — prior to that fateful day — I had left the NYSE on Wall Street to pursue God’s calling — ministry. I entered seminary with my wife and one small child in tow. Quite a change, I agree. But if God calls you to do something, you must obey and trust Him to keep His promises of providing for you. I have always believed that where God guides – God provides. Having spent some years in school and graduating with my bachelor’s degree, I found out soon after how hard it was to secure a job in the church. I began work on my master’s degree but desperately needed a job. Now, having two children in tow, I called my old friends on Wall Street, and they took me back to work on the trading floor of the NYSE. Working during the day and taking classes in the evening, I did not abandon my calling but diligently pursued it while providing for my family responsibilities. It was only a short 1 ½ years later that my whole life would forever be changed. As they say, hindsight is 20-20. I can see now what I could not see then as to the purpose God had in putting me through that great tragedy and loss of lives. Those of us who did not die on that day can say that a part of us certainly did. Having gone up to the buildings after they were hit, looking for a coworker, I saw things I never want to see again, or think about. Finding my coworker was a miracle and yet it was just one of many. Three of us worked our way down to the pier at the harbor hoping to get on a ferry and get off the island. To our dismay, we found ourselves crammed into a crowd like sardines, stuck between two metal fences, hundreds of people crying and screaming, trying to force their way onto one boat. I noticed on the other side of the fence there was another boat sitting there and nobody was boarding it. I began to climb the fence, straddled the top of it and reached down to pull my friends over so we could get home. I just wanted to get them home. After making it across the harbor to Jersey City, walking for hours and stopping buses in the street, we finally found one to Newark Penn Station that ultimately brought us home. I had nightmares and now had to deal with PTSD, but God was still working something through it all. It was a long arduous journey, but one that changed me forever.

Fast forward to 2003. I found myself leaving Wall Street and being ordained as an Anglican Clergyman. I was hired for the position of Vice President of Chaplaincy at a retirement community, where I spent the next 13 years working with suffering, grief, death and dying — fun, I know. Yet what I didn’t realize until my 5^th year into it, was that God had given me a gift to do this type of ministry full-time — a gift that many other clergy told me they did not have. I had never thought of it as a gift; I just did it. I admit, I was scared and uncomfortable at times going into a room to sit with someone who was actively dying. Everything inside of me didn’t want to go; but I went, because I was obedient, and it is what God had called me to do. Then, when I sat by the person dying, I could feel God’s presence overcome me and I would love on these people with everything in me. It is a very difficult feeling to explain. But after — what I would call later, “Walking Them Home” — I would head back to my office and have an overwhelming feeling that I was just used as a conduit of His Grace to those suffering and dying, because I knew if it were up to me, I might not have gone. I was scared, but leaving the room after they had passed on, I always felt that peace from the Lord.

As we find ourselves nearing the anniversary of 9-11 once again, I reflect upon the experience of a tragedy that God turned into a triumph in my life. Not long ago, when I told my sister my story of how I got off the Island by climbing the fence and pulling my coworkers over the fence to get them home, she said, “Tim, (Fatherr Lazarus) you are still pulling people over the fence to get them home.” Yes, she was exactly right. I now saw how God used a tragedy filled with fear, grief, death and despair, to use it to gift me with the ability to help others face fear, grief, death and despair. The Lord took the biggest event in my life —the one that changed me forever — to equip me to help others face the biggest event in their life — facing death — the one that will change them forever. For me, as I look back, the choice of going back to work on Wall Street put me right in the middle of the biggest terrorist attack on our country. That choice turned around and changed me. However, I could have allowed that tragic event to change me for the worse, as it has for many. Instead, God helped me use it for others, to give people hope and to have the privilege of walking many people home as they ended their earthly pilgrimages.

Beloved, we all are, in some sense, “Walking Home”. We are seeking to go to where home has always been — heaven. We are also walking home from choices and circumstances in our own lives; choices that may have brought very hard circumstances to us, and now home is finding a friend to lean on, rest for our weary body and peace in this world of anxiety. I remember pulling my coworkers over the fence to get them home without even thinking twice about it; I just did it. I wonder if we took a minute to reflect on the many people in our lives, if we could think of anyone who we could help by pulling them over the fence so they too, could get home. Even now, we can make that choice, the choice to help someone else. You see, all tragedies are dark valleys that we encounter, no matter what form they take. But they don’t have to stay dark, we can make a choice to sow seeds of comfort, peace and love in those valleys, and you will see how God uses those choices to bring forth flowers in the valley that once was — the valley of the shadow of death.

So, take time on this anniversary of 9-11 to remember the tragic loss of life and the terrible attack on this country and to honor those brave men and women who responded with courage to help. Then, turn around, look at those in your life, and see who you can help pull over the fence and get them home. I guarantee that if you make THAT choice, it will turn around and MAKE YOU for all eternity.

GOD LOVE YOU!