Twenty Years Ago

On this day, twenty years ago. Where were you?

I remember it well because it marked the beginning (or delay rather) of our journey to a desert country, our new home. I wrote about it years later in “Villa in the Hilla.” Today, I want to remember. I’ll refrain from editing (I’ve learned a lot about writing since then!) and post what I wrote just the way I wrote it.

God’s Precious Word (from Villa in the Hilla)

Scripture has always been a large part of my life. I was raised on the nourishment of the Word daily. Before I even knew what it meant, I could quote the books of the Bible in order. My parents helped us children in memorizing verses. I wanted to read the Bible daily like my parents and older siblings did. I have been told that in first grade, as soon as I learned to read my first word (which was the word “and”) I would spend time each morning going through my Bible finding all the “and”s I could find. That was my daily time in the Word!

September 11, 2001

Scripture has always been important. I would say, though, that Scripture became “precious” to me in the Fall of 2001. My husband and I had just finished two years of intense language study and now we were headed to the country we felt God calling us to. We had shipped what little belongings we owned ahead of us and had moved out of our house. Now we were staying just a few weeks in a guesthouse as we prepared to move to our new home. We were filled with excitement and anticipation. We were now face to face with what we had been working toward for years: making our home in North Africa.

A week before our departure, we were invited to a colleague’s house for a “going away” dinner. When we knocked on their door, we were met by the husband who quickly ushered us in and straight to the television where together we watched an airliner fly straight into one of the twin towers in New York. Was it true? I remember thinking the footage looked like a badly shot “B-rated” movie. It was unreal. Things happened fast and people all across the world panicked. Our move was put on hold.

Put On Hold

For more weeks than we’d planned, we waited and watched to see what would happen. Would we get to go? Would our sending agency forbid us? For me it was an emotional time and a “step” of faith to not take any steps. I truly learned to wait on the Lord. I remember sitting out on the balcony of the guesthouse and reading Psalms. I just devoured the words of David and his cries to the Lord sang the very words I couldn’t express. That was when God’s Word became precious to me.

As it turned out, we were delayed only about six weeks. I don’t think it was a mistake that I began to hunger for His Word just weeks before we were able to move. I think it was a lesson the Lord wanted me to learn. Over the next eight years, His Word would become my life-line. 

Posting His Word

During dark seasons I would write out verses and post them all over the kitchen walls, the bathroom walls, the bedroom walls. Sometimes I had verses posted at our front gate or by the phone. Each verse posted meant something special to me for a particular time in my life that the Lord and I were working through. They became a reminder to me and a testimony to others of God’s faithfulness.

Your statutes are my heritage forever; they are the joy of my heart.

Psalm 119:111