Lest We Forget — And Still We Press On

A September 11 Reflection
The Curious Pilgrim — September 11, 2026

Tomorrow is September 11.

In the United States, it is a day of remembrance. We remember the lives lost on September 11, 2001. We remember the airplanes. We remember the buildings. We remember the smoke. We remember the fear.

And those of us who were alive that day remember where we were when we heard what had happened.

I was in the hospital.

I had been admitted a day or so earlier with a serious infection. I was very sick. In fact, the doctor had told me that I had about a fifty-fifty chance of surviving.

I was barely conscious when a nurse came into my room and turned on the television.

She told me what was happening.

I was simply too sick to comprehend the enormity of what I was seeing.

Sometime after the nurse left, a woman from the hospital finance office came into my room. She wanted to talk with me about how I was going to pay for my hospital care.

I remember having just enough clarity to tell her something like this:

“The doctor was just here and told me I have a fifty-fifty chance of surviving. I’m not sure I’ll be alive long enough to pay the bill.”

She was very understanding and supportive.

And I survived.

I had to drop out of seminary for a year. I had to take a leave of absence from the church I was serving. For a while, I survived mostly on popsicles and Ensure.

But gradually my strength returned.

God’s grace carried me.

Only later did I really begin to comprehend what had happened to our nation on September 11, 2001.

We have seen and lived history.

I was home from school with the mumps when John F. Kennedy was inaugurated President.

I was in the school library when an announcement came over the intercom telling us that President Kennedy had been assassinated.

I was attending a Bible conference at Free Will Baptist Bible College in Nashville when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis.

We watched the Vietnam War unfold on the nightly news.

We watched and listened as the Watergate hearings unfolded on national television.

And then came September 11.

We have seen and lived history.

But history isn’t simply dates printed in a textbook.

History has sounds.

It has faces.

It has hospital rooms and school libraries.

It has television screens.

It has tears.

It has fear.

It has questions.

And sometimes it has empty chairs where someone we loved once sat.

Jesus warned his disciples that troubling events would come. He spoke of wars, turmoil, fear, and uncertainty. He told them that when these things happened, they should lift up their heads because their redemption was drawing near.

I have to admit something.

Sometimes that is hard to do.

When tragedy strikes, we feel the pain.

We feel the fear.

We feel the stress and anxiety.

And sometimes we simply grieve.

Faith does not mean pretending that tragedy doesn’t hurt.

Faith means discovering that somehow, even in the middle of tragedy, grace is still present.

Recently I have been following the journeys of two men whose lives changed dramatically.

One is a police officer who was shot in the line of duty. He records portions of his recovery and the tremendous work involved in learning how to live after such a devastating injury. I admire his determination, his faith, and his refusal to give up.

Another young man I follow was terribly injured in an automobile accident. He nearly died and now lives his life in a wheelchair.

Yet there he is—going places, attending the state fair, taking adventures, living his life.

I watch these men and think:

Keep going.

Paul said something similar.

Press on.

That phrase has become increasingly meaningful to me as I grow older and look back over the road I have traveled.

September 11 carries another familiar phrase:

Lest we forget.

We must not forget.

We remember those who died.

We remember those who ran toward danger to help others.

We remember the families whose lives changed forever.

But perhaps “lest we forget” means something more for all of us.

We have not forgotten where we have been.

We have not forgotten what we have seen.

We have not forgotten what we have felt.

We have not forgotten the people we have loved and lost.

And we have not forgotten the grace that somehow carried us through.

I survived that hospital room.

Others survived tragedies I cannot imagine.

Some did not.

And here we are.

Another morning comes.

Another sunrise appears.

Another day is placed before us.

“This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

So we remember yesterday.

We grieve what was lost.

We honor those who are gone.

And then, by the grace of God, we take another step.

Sometimes that step is strong.

Sometimes it is taken with a cane.

Sometimes it is taken from a wheelchair.

Sometimes we barely have the strength to take it at all.

But still we press on.

Lest we forget.

We remember.

And by the grace and mercy of God,

we press on.

—The Curious Pilgrim