Remembering 9-11 & Nate Snow's God Story

Good morning.

You know, God is good.

And uh we'll talk this morning about even in in tough times, even in in trials and tragedy and suffering.

Um He is still so good to us.

A lot to talk about this morning.

First I want to talk a little bit uh about the 10-year anniversary of 9-11.

You know, it's obviously a sobering topic, but I think we'll see it's encouraging uh in ways as well.

But then we're gonna finish with a story that is it's in some ways similar to 9-11 because it involves uh a true tragedy for one of our families here.

But like 9-11, it is also a story with with heroes and triumph and and God uh in our most difficult times.

And so let's pray as we get going with that.

Father, we praise you.

We thank you for being such a such a great God, for adopting us as your very own children.

Holy Spirit, we thank you for being our teacher and our encourager and comforter.

And we ask you to that we would all leave with something from you today, that you would teach us something or encourage us or or uh or comfort us.

And Jesus, thank you for being our Savior and our friend.

Okay, we think now uh uh about the the people that were lost uh ten years ago today.

No, this time has got to be uh especially tough for them and in their grief.

And so we just ask you to comfort them and and their families.

We we think of the uh the courageous people, the the firefighters and and police officers and rescue workers and and everyone that sacrificed and and risked their lives at that time.

And uh for those that were lost, we ask you to be especially strong with their families today and and and our brave men and women that that protect this country and the military and all those lives that have been lost since 9-11.

That you would bless and and and support their family and and protect uh them now as they as they protect and serve us.

God, we we love you and uh we trust you.

And Jesus is in your name we pray.

Amen.

Well, there's there's different days in history that impact generations.

You know, they're not always negative.

You know, sometimes it's something like uh landing on the moon, you know, or even something uh as small as the miracle on ice, um, or the or the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, the ending of the the Cold War.

Often, though, those days are are shocking and and they are tragic.

Days like uh Pearl Harbor, days like the day that John F.

Kennedy uh was assassinated.

And for many of us, it was ten years ago today.

We probably all remember watching it uh on TV, maybe how we first heard about it, and then uh watching it unfold.

You know, for me it's easy to remember at first the confusion, not understanding uh what's what's going on at at all, and then uh fear of what what is gonna happen, uh, you know, and then tremendous anger, and uh and then a resolve, you know, to to fix it and and do something about it.

Um it's obviously an important day.

Our national history, it's an important day uh in each of our lives.

It's it's a day that kind of the nation's thinking about this weekend, and and many of us are thinking about this morning.

So I wanted to share just a couple thoughts uh about it.

And and one is the question of why God allows tragedies like 9-11 to happen.

And that question's a biggie.

It's not one that we have time to completely answer.

And by that I don't mean we don't have time this morning.

I mean I don't think we have time in our lifetime um to answer every question.

Certainly not to have an answer that satisfies us that we're completely um okay with.

For me, it's it's not so much of finding the exact answer as it is making peace with what I know and what I know about God and and what I do understand uh and trusting God.

Some of God's ways are are a mystery that we'll just have to wait to completely understand.

In 1 Corinthians 8, it says, anyone who claims to know all the answers doesn't really know very much.

And then go on in 1 Corinthians 13.

Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.

All that I don't know now is partial and incomplete.

But then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

And so we're not gonna understand everything.

Um things are are mystery.

You know, I I uh remember and we talk about sometimes when Jesus is talking to to Nicodemus about um um about being saved and having new life, and and Jesus himself says, you know, it's really hard to explain.

And and so if things are hard for Jesus to explain, I think that there are things that are gonna be difficult for us to understand.

So the idea of how a loving God allows um tragedies to happen is not a simple answer.

But the truth of it is in is in a combination of things.

It's a combination of people having free will and uh and not being able to completely supervent circumvent that without eliminating it.

Um it's in part that there's always been a war between good and evil, and that won't be completely resolved until uh Jesus comes again.

Part of the answer is difficult for us to hear, I think, but it's that suffering itself is actually good for us.

Um so much of how God grows us and develops us and matures us as people is when we go through hard times and and suffer.

Much of the answer is in the truth that death is not final.

And what looks so tragic, you know, from our vantage point, it's gonna look completely different soon and in eternity.

And that God will make everything right.

But he'll do it completely one day.

And that day we will know.

We will know in full.

We will see through a clear glass, we will get it.

We'll say, okay, I get it.

I understand now.

Um we can see how Jesus reacted to tragedy.

Um in Hebrews 1 and verse 3.

It says, The sun radiates God's own glory and expresses the very character of God.

And so when we see Jesus in the New Testament, we actually see the very character of God.

And so what did Jesus do when he saw suffering?

What did Jesus do when he encountered uh um pain?

Well, sometimes he cried.

Sometimes he wept, but he always cared.

He always cared.

He helped in two main ways.

He helped directly himself, you know, miraculously he would he would intervene sometimes, uh, other times he would um um non-miraculously intervene, like uh with a woman once, where he intervened on her behalf and then and then uh protected and encouraged her.

You know, he was loving and comforting and and and helping.

And Jesus also helped people through other people.

You know, he would send his disciples and he would send to send uh he would send his followers.

Uh in fact, he told his followers that they would do greater works than him.

And that's true, because on earth Jesus had limited himself to himself, but there's no limit, there's no limit to how many people can have God's love and have his love pour through their hearts into other people.

This is really important for us to understand, and not just as it applies to things like 9-11, but just as it applies to our lives in general and our relationship with God.

And that is that God is not a big puppet master manipulating the world.

He is a God in partnership and relationship with people.

And so on September 11th, 2001, he intervened directly.

Now we don't know how he minimized what could have been a great, much greater tragedy.

But we do know he intervened directly, giving comfort and strength and courage and peace to the people involved.

And like always, much of what he did was through other people.

God's love, God's spirit and people, his self-sacrifice and people who stormed the terrace on Flight 93 and crashed it in order to save others.

His courage and love and firefighters that race into a collapsing building to save people that were uh complete strangers, his love and people that poured out um from all over the world, really.

Uh love and prayers and people pouring in to um New York and Manhattan to help.

Philip Yancey is a Christian author, he wrote a book entitled, Where is God When It Hurts?

And I think his overall conclusion is he is everywhere.

That his presence is everywhere, and it's often in the hearts of his people.

And see, that's what his hands means to us.

That God works and helps and loves through people, and we can be that people, those people.

You know, I don't know why God at times protects us from tragedy, which he does.

I think we've all been through that.

Sometimes we're like, oh God saved me.

You know, if it wasn't for God, I don't know why sometimes he protects us from tragedy and other times he allows it and helps us through it.

But when it strikes, he is there.

He's there directly for us, and he's there through people.

And he promises to make good come out of every bad situation.

In Romans 8.28, it says, that's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

Mayor Rudy Giuliani said this about September 11th.

He said, It was the worst day of my life and the best day.

It was the worst day because of the incomprehensible death, destruction, and evil.

Very soon after the attacks, we begin to understand the threat posed by Islamic extremist terrorism.

September 11th was also the best day because it put on display the very finest human qualities compassion, courage, kindness, selflessness, first responders rushed into what they knew was a life-threatening emergencies.

Neighbors help neighbors, and aid poured from good people all over the country and the world.

God has caused good to come from that day.

At that time, America as a country, we kind of instinctively to return to to our roots, to our core values, to what's really important.

You know, it was the bagpipes playing Amazing Grace at Ground Zero.

It was President Bush quoting Psalms 23.

It was uh the Congress praying together and and then singing God bless America together.

It was New Yorkers, you know, stopped honking their horns at each other and and truly, I mean, helped and cared for each other in a way that that's an example for for all of us.

People lined up ten deep to cheer the workers on as they went to to rescue and help at Ground Zero.

Those people, some of them went 72 hours straight.

And not only were they physically exhausted, but many of them had that burden of having lost loved ones themselves and friends in that tragedy.

And what fueled them was people.

It was the people lined up and cheering for them as they went towards Ground Zero.

Tell them we love you.

Thank you.

We're with you.

You know, we got a renewed appreciation for I think the courage of people who protect us, like firefighters and police officers and men and women that serve in the military.

New appreciation for the responsibility that elected officials have and how much they need our prayers.

And a renewed understanding of each of our dependence on God and the need for the love of God in everyone.

And the question, I think, for me has changed from why does God allow suffering and tragedy?

Because even if I don't understand that completely, I've at least made peace with the with the question.

But it's changed to how can anyone get through life with and its suffering without God.

I mean he cares for us, he helps us, he works through people, he brings good from every situation, I mean even the very worst situations.

I don't know how I could or anyone can make it throughout through life without God.

We don't have to go back ten years to see God work in tragedy and trial.

And it's because we have a young man at his hands that many of us love, and a family that we love and also are inspired by.

And they were struck by a tragedy a little more than a year ago.

And this is their story.

But uh we're just at the first leg of a long race.

When it first happened, I guess we sort of had the Hollywood idea of how things happen that you either die or you get better right now.

My name's Nathaniel Snow, and uh I'm a pretty nice guy.

Nathaniel's obviously the like second to youngest child, so um, you know, and I'm the oldest, so it's kind of a gap.

He's the middle child and uh between two strong personalities.

I've been through a lot of depression and things like that.

He had some depression during his teenage years.

It was uh a little bit more difficult for him to kinda kind of uh keep the relationship going.

He had some feelings of uh not being quite able to fit into the right place or feel accepted, I think.

He just didn't feel secure in himself.

I never felt like he um knew how much I loved him, you know, and so that's one beautiful thing about this, you know, turnaround.

He has to know how much I love him now.

He's stuck with it every day.

I believe he has a happiness and uh confidence that he is loved uh amazingly.

And it doesn't have to be something he has to earn.

I think his involvement in his hands really did affect his life in a very positive way.

Just being involved in the worship and getting to know people here, it was just uh a beautiful thing in his life.

I could definitely see, even though he was struggling with depression, um, he could definitely pull himself out of it.

Overcoming that's been the biggest thing in my life has completely changed me, made me a very strong person.

What impressed me about Nate was we were in the networking meeting, and he showed up dressed cleanly and clean cut and he brought in a resume, and that was really great for me, and it was inspiring that somebody from high school would have that kind of I don't know, that kind of direction and uh ambition.

So we talked and I said, I'm a contractor, so if you want to come out and help with decks and move material and things like that, and he said, That's great.

So we worked together for I'm thinking it was probably six months or so, and uh, and he was a great worker.

Late in the evening on Wednesday, on a Wednesday in April last year when we got that call that every parent dreads that uh we were in an accident.

It was bad.

Jonathan called Ben.

Jonathan was in the accident also, his younger brother.

I got a call at 10:30 at night.

Um, my mom said Jonathan and Nathaniel have been in a car accident, and uh we're headed over to Kennistone.

They sent Jonathan to Kennistone Hospital.

But then uh they learned that Nathaniel had been lifelighted to Grady Hospital.

They had to extricate Nathaniel with the Jaws of Life.

The investigator who was at the scene of the accident reported to us that he's never seen anyone come out of that serious of an accident.

There was no driver's side.

The steering wheel was into the seat almost.

It was dramatic.

So we had the dilemma of where to go with your sons in two different hospitals.

They went to go see Jonathan for a moment, you know, but Jonathan kept shooing all the visitors away, saying, you know, I'm fine, go see Nathaniel because all of us knew Nathaniel was in some serious, you know, trouble.

He might not survive the night, he might not survive the next few hours.

We ended up at Brady.

And um when I uh when I limped in and then went to park the car, I happened to find um I happened to look down an a a side hallway and I saw him.

And I could tell it was him because of his length.

He was all covered with a sheet, including his head.

And uh all I saw was his hair and his outline of, you know.

I thought he was dead.

We were told that uh he was not dead, but uh we should guard our hearts.

Hope for the best, but guard our hearts.

I was a little bit nervous to see him in the first place because the family members who had come through before were saying, Aliyah, you don't want to go see him right now.

He doesn't look like himself.

Um he's really torn up.

Um, but I just wanted to see him anyway.

Once I heard that he had his accident, it frightened me.

I've never been involved with someone that has had an accident like this, especially somebody that was close to me, and I was scared to go see him because I didn't know what I'd see.

And I avoided going to see him because of my fear.

I went to see him and his face was all, you know, swollen, um, very black and blue face, and he was covered in tubes and IVs and everything like that.

Once I saw him, it was a huge impact on me that I knew that there wasn't anything I could do to make him any better.

I knew that there wasn't anything I could do to keep from having this happen to him, so I felt compelled to do something to improve his quality of life.

My fear was overcome with ambition, and the ambition to help him with what he needed drove me.

The week following was pretty nightmarish.

It was difficult.

Um we had so many medical emergencies hour by hour basically.

The biggest one uh biggest problem was his um brain pressure, the intracranial pressure, uh, was getting too high, which happens in any brain injury.

There was um a brand new drug study that started at Grady.

It was a progesterone flesh.

And so they could say that that prevents swelling from the brain.

Well, it started that week.

Nathaniel was the third person entered into that study, but this had happened a week before.

We may have lost him.

And the benefit of that study was that they kept super close track of all these statistics and uh monitored them, kept them in range more than they do usually.

All that monitoring was uh just really exceptional to prevent other problems.

And we were just praying, praying, praying, asking everybody we could to pray.

Uh it it actually started to be like this really beautiful thing amidst the nightmare that um we were getting so many prayers, like, you know, hey, we're praying for you, hey, my whole church was praying for you.

We got uh we heard that people in Israel were praying in Costa Rica, in Africa, and Australia, I think, all over the world people were praying for 'em in all over United States.

So it was a beautiful thing, but it was a very difficult week.

So we lived at the hospital for three months then.

After one month at Grady, we transferred over to Shepherd Rehab Center and we transferred to their ICU unit because he still needed some support.

Then we came home feeling very unprepared to come home.

Bringing him home was an exciting thing and a difficult thing at the same time.

Mostly exciting, but there were just some definitely some obstacles.

And our skill set, I think we all that was one area of medical is something we knew very little about.

At Shepherd Center they taught my parents how to take care of Nathaniel, but it's one thing to learn something and another thing to do it.

Now they were not only the visitors to Nathaniel at the hospital, they were the full-time caregivers, nurse, everything to Nathaniel 24-7.

You know, we would all basically take eight-hour shifts.

I think that's how it started with eight-hour shifts with Nathaniel until we kind of got the groove down.

We were scrambling because this is a tall skinny house and there are no bedrooms or full bathrooms on the main level, and obviously he's not able to make stairs, and so hospital bed landed next to the fireplace in the family room.

The house had the wear and tear of seven children.

We had old wrinkly carpet and it was getting older and wrinkler and more stained as the days went by.

Everything has wheels on it, that's the hospital situation.

The wheelchair, the hospital bed, the table, the feeding gadget that runs through the night.

Just pushing everything around was really difficult, and so the church came in and did a beautiful thing for us.

That's when I came here to the church and I said, What can we do?

Jeff came in and uh told us that the church was going to want to help.

When uh he and Steve Craig came and uh talked to my family about the renovations.

We were pretty uh amazed and excited because we had no, you know, we had no resources.

We were struggling to just keep our heads above water and uh what a beautiful offer.

At that point I went and met grandma, grandpa, mom, dad, everybody was there, and as I showed up, I had my notebook, my my knowledge of construction, and and God, and we showed up together at the door.

I guess uh Jeff had it on his heart to help and uh to do something for Nathaniel to make his life better, and uh he really went for it, really uh called the troops together, and uh it was just beautiful.

They weren't sure what I was offering, and the fact is I wasn't either.

I I said we're here as a church to help you get what you need to accomplish your goals, and they said we don't know where to start, and I said, I don't either.

But let's start at the top and work down.

We did the whole main level of the house here.

I didn't know how we were going to accomplish the tasks that we took on, but I found out that I didn't need to.

The the response from the people that go to the church and and both from a monetary standpoint and a volunteer standpoint was overwhelming.

There was an enormous and immediate outpouring, and uh the list was long, it was pages long of people who would be willing to come in and help and donate their time and expertise uh to our cause, which was a real blessing.

We'd got laminate, it was what we felt like would be better for the wheels.

So Steve Sinatra donated the flooring.

Then uh some of our neighbors have a laminate installation company, and so they volunteered to put it in.

We had people walking by the table, throwing hundred dollar bills on the table and saying, you know, I can't come and help, but to use this for materials, and it was it was great.

It was also uh a neat thing for my parents to see this kind of a community, and they have a good community, but they just said they've never seen anything like this.

And this is where where God really came into my life and he said you need to devote some time and energy to this.

And this really wasn't up until not too long ago, wasn't me at all.

It was more of being selfish and self-centered, and as I've learned to give to others, it's it's been a joy and happiness I can't find anywhere else.

I get more joy out of helping people now than I ever have before.

Um I can't find that kind of joy anywhere.

Jeff started uh helping us and uh organizing all the improvements to the house.

We were just so busy.

Well, it stayed, it's still so busy.

But uh, we were so busy doing taking care of Natty and trying to take care of all the things that have to be done and work and everything that uh it was just a blessing for Jeff to be able to come in and just take care of everything and handle all the details of the renovations.

That was quite a blessing.

We basically needed uh a bathroom for Nathaniel Handicap accessible bathroom.

Because there wasn't an accessible bathroom.

Nate's tall and his wheelchair doesn't turn at a tight radius.

So my goal was to get him enough space to be able to function as a normal person.

Before we had the bathroom, uh we would take Nathaniel out into the garage.

My grandfather had set up some kind of little shower thing from an RV, and the water would just trickle out into the driveway.

Uh that's that's what we had for a shower.

Otherwise, it was just always sponge baths in bed.

So we went in and we made the rest of their house on that level available for him to be able to move his chair and get from point A to point B, and it made his life a lot easier through the course of the construction.

We had volunteers come and help paint and do all the things that they knew how to do or they were willing to be trained, and of course, Jeff Brown and everything that he did.

Seems like he was there all week long sometimes.

And then once we got started on the bathroom, we took over about a third of their living space and got the bathroom finished in a design that I think worked really well.

And all of this was free for us, and it's just amazing.

It's a constant reminder that God's providing for so many things that we would have never been able to manage ourselves.

So it's given us great strength and hope and encouragement.

The family was incredibly grateful, and they knew that their needs were met not by me but by the people coming together through God and working, Him working through us.

And all the prayer and encouragement, um, people are bringing us dinners, and I I could go on forever.

So many things everybody's doing for us.

It's a testimony that uh he loves us and he cares and that uh he has people in place praying for us.

Us coming together as a church and doing for them what we did was exactly what they needed, I think.

Before his hands started getting involved a lot with uh with just helping us with the uh brain injury and in our house and everything, um my dad didn't come to church.

He he just didn't come to church.

But after his hands really kind of started helping us out, he really just saw a more beautiful side to the church.

He's been coming with Nathaniel to the church now, so it's a huge step.

I'm excited that he's coming back and that he's happy about his hands church.

I used to pray for a um a closer relationship with Natty.

And uh, you know, he's he's busy and I'm busy and everything, and this has just really brought us closer together, and we just formed a good tight bond.

They don't deserve what happened to Nate as Nate doesn't or as anybody does.

This entire thing has been uh a bit has had a big impact on my parents and uh naturally so.

We lost a child basically, and we lost this year.

It I think one of the biggest things that my parents deal with is grief.

Um grieving the loss or the possible loss of parts of Nathaniel or something, you know.

Um I think that's been their biggest emotional struggle.

It hasn't been a death kind of a loss, it's a a rebirthing kind of a loss where it's uh it's bringing in something new.

Nathaniel makes so many improvements all the time.

A lot of our milestones and adjustments this year have been uh watching the emergence of the new thing.

One of my favorites was more recent, is when he started laughing.

His best friend, John, came over and was just shaking his hand or whatever, and he had his mouth open, you know, so he looked like he was trying to bite John's arm, and I mentioned that as like, you look like you're trying to bite John's arm, and then he pulled it closer and laughed, and it was the best moment.

All of us were like, I know you're laughing, but I'm crying.

Who's funnier?

Steve or me?

Recently he started writing.

That's uh been beautiful to see his personality.

Start way over here at big letters.

Let's see.

I love you.

Is that what that says?

If you've not heard anything from your brother in over a year, getting to hear him laugh and getting to see what he's what his thoughts are is mind-blowing and um very exciting.

Like I said, we were crying.

I know we were crying.

And he was writing things like I love you, and this is exciting, thank you, about writing.

Um, you know, and I want pizza.

It's an excitement and a hope in having the new thing.

What a beautiful, beautiful miracle the whole renovation project was.

Um, we now have a handicapped accessible bathroom, and it's a beautiful, beautiful bathroom that Jeff did, donated by people from his hands, and it's just such an incredible difference.

God's providing for so many things that uh we uh would have never been able to manage ourselves.

I just want to say millions of thank yous to everybody at his hands.

We've just been bombarded with love by the people of his hands, and uh it's just an incredible, an incredibly beautiful story.

Out of all this heartache, there's so much beauty.

Um I love you all.

It's such an inspiring family.

Um Ben and Kathleen and the Snows are over there and Aliyah and Nate and and I don't think they see it as much because they're um in it, you know, and and and and and need help and those types of things.

But I don't think anyone's ever I know personally, I've never interacted with them when I haven't come away with more than I went with.

You know, it's just they have so much love and so much uh joy and hard times and and so much uh um just persistence and love as a family.

And so I'm just so thankful that they're part of his hand.

And uh we want to take this opportunity for Nate to know how much of a room for him and and proud of him.

So we love you, Nate.

So let's uh let's say uh uh a prayer for them.

So Father, we just praise you.

We thank you for um for the snows, we thank you for for Nate, we thank you for the the miracle you did that first night and saving his life and and in the weeks after, and and how you've uh been with him and got him through so much struggles and and how um and how now he's uh laughing and communicating.

And so we praise you, and we thank you for your goodness and and how you've gotten uh the snows this far through such a a tough time.

And God's our desire that you would just completely uh finish the work you're doing in Nate and that you would heal him uh just uh totally, as if this had never happened.

And we just trust you, Father, to give him everything that he needs, and and to bless the snow family, and and to give them more than they they need.

And we just ask you to show us how we can continue to do that, and we just ask you to perform miracles in their lives, and we praise you and we love you and we trust you.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

And so we we all need God and we all need each other.

You know, the way we reconnect with God is through his son.

It started in the Garden of Eden, really, where where mankind had a choice.

Is it gonna be a relationship in life with God, or is it gonna be our own way?

And and we made that choice, you know, but all of us have made that choice individually.

And so when we turn to Jesus, it's a way of saying, No, I don't want to do it my own way.

I need you.

I need you, Father, I need your need your life.

And so we just say to him in our own words, in our in our own way, you know, that you know, I need you, or I'm sorry, or or or help me, or please save me, or teach me, or or or wherever we're at.

And he does, I mean, he feels us and he strengthens us and he changes us.

And and he's there for us.

He's there in person and he's there through his family and through his people for us.

So if you've never made that choice to reconnect with God, you could um you could make that today.

If the if the worship team wants to come up, we're gonna finish and stay standing.

Um we're gonna finish here and and and celebrate um how good God is here in a minute.

I will uh we prayed a couple times for other people.

Let's finish.

Uh I'd just like to say a blessing uh over each of you.

So, Father, we praise you, we thank you so much.

Thank you for everybody here today.

And uh many of us, Father, although you can't tell from looking at us, are going through our own tragedies, our own struggles, and and um and need you so much.

And so, God, just please bless everyone here.

Give them everything they need and more.

We just pray you bless them so they have enough financially and and health and friends.

God, I just thank you for pouring your love into each of us.

Please pour your love into us and so it overflows.

Help us to be um your hands and and your presence in everyone's life around us.

We praise you and we we love you, and we thank you in Jesus' name.

Amen.