Ringmaster of the 3 Ring Circus

Friday, September 11, 2009

The kids school held a Patriots Day ceremony to honor our heroes and to remember this day. They've done it every year and every year it moves me to tears. I was drawn back to where I was on 9/11, amazed that the student from my 4th grade class that day are now college freshmen and that the students sitting with me were preschoolers at best on that day.

Here are some of the heroes honored today. I wish you could see a "kid" on the back row in Marine dress uniform named Billy. I have known Billy since he really was a kid, a teen who volunteered helping me teach elementary aged kids on Sunday nights when he wasn't much older than them. We've been praying for Billy as a church and his standing there was quite simply an answer to those prayers. Billy just returned from his first tour in Iraq and I'm sure in all of his 20 years, he has seen more horror over there than I will ever see. This morning when Hannah woke up the first thing she said was, "Oh, man, I wish I could've invited Billy." When I watched him marching in the other heroes these school honored, I almost couldn't keep the tears at bay. His mom is and has been one of my kids' preschool teachers for years and she asked me today in carline to "pray Billy out of Afghanistan" which is where he's set to go in 13 months. So if you think about it, pray for Billy with us.