I recently submitted my manuscript for the upcoming book From Rubble to Redemption-A Ground Zero Chaplain Remembers. It is a memoir, but so much mare than that. It is an invitation to an encounter with God in the midst of the rubble of our failures and traumas and brokenness. The book should be released at the end of July.
In the book I introduce the reader to a number of remarkable people I met and worked alongside with in the daunting task of ministering to the families devastated by the events of September 11, 2001. I was struck by the fact that an individual person has the capacity and God-given opportunities to exert disproportionate influence for good.
Both of my children were honored as salutatorians of their high school and had the privilege of addressing their peers at the graduation exercises. I remember talking to each of them about the power of one. I believe it was Andrew Jackson who once said,
“One man with courage makes a majority.”
As we emerge from two of the most stressful years in my lifetime, I have thought back to Jackson’s remark more than once. I also remembered a quote from a man who literally helped bring down the Soviet Union and inspire a generation to push back against tyranny.
Alexander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn fought for the Red Army in WWII and was arrested by the SMERSH and sentenced to 8 years in the Gulag and then exiled for criticizing Stalin in a private letter. In University I read his masterpiece The Gulag Archipelago. and then Cancer Ward. Both books had a huge impact on me.
I remember hearing this quote attributed to him
Let This Be Your Credo
Let the Lie Come into The World
Let it Even Triumph
But Not Through Me
In the weeks ramping up to the 20th anniversary of 9/11, I will be posting material from the book and insights that motivated me to write it. My message for today. Don’t let the cancel culture mob silence you. Don’t resort to petty name calling or take the bait and become embittered.
Stand your ground and don’t let the Devil move you from you position of simple faith in Christ and adherence to his Word. When the Apostle James wrote “Resist the Devil and he will flee from you” he used the word anti histemi (Resist) LIterally to ‘stand against’
Hear O Israel, The Lord our God…The Lord is ONE
Pastor Jim
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