The Power of Two
October 8, 2001
I’m still unsettled by the terrible scene that
keeps replaying in my mind. And I still have to choke back tears
when I hear a survivor tell about their escape from the flames,
the falling building, or the expanding plume of dirt-colored
debris. I’ve never heard so many stories of bravery and
sacrifice. It strikes me as odd that I could have listened to so
many stories and fail to notice, until yesterday, something so
important. Had you noticed that in almost every instance the men
and women who escaped were helped by somebody else? It’s one of
those parts of the story that is so common, it just hadn’t
registered with me—like the beauty of dew on the morning grass.
One man said, “The hallway was filled with smoke
and I couldn’t see anything. I was about to suffocate. And then
a voice penetrated the darkness. ‘If you can hear my voice, come
to me.’ So I crawled to the voice of a man I couldn’t see—and he
couldn’t see me either.” That voice, kept calling and he kept
crawling until he reached safety.
Then there was the woman who watched as the first
building imploded. She said, “I’ve got this inner instinct that
tells me when I’m in danger. I know when to run and when to
hide.” Yet, she stood, like a statue, and watched the massive
cloud of debris race toward her. And then somebody opened the
door of a deli and pulled her to safety. As the cloud enveloped
the building and turned the day into night she repeatedly cried
out, “Oh thank you! Thank you! Thank you. You saved my life!”
Hysterical, she couldn’t seem to stop thanking them for pulling
her to safety.
The stories go on and on and on—people who would
have died if somebody hadn’t called for them, or pulled them to
safety, or carried them and their wheel chair down too many
flights of stairs to count.
As I reflected on these near death experiences I
realized how much we’re all like those survivors. We all need
somebody to help us when we can’t help ourselves. And on
occasion, we need to be the voice in the darkness, or the hand
in the storm.
As Mighty Men we must never, ever, forget how
desperately we need other men to encourage and strengthen us.
And we must never, ever forget that there are men who need us.
That’s why Paul urged us to “Strengthen the weak” (1
Thessalonians 5:14).
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