Watermark Blogs

“In the last couple of months, the news has been filled with images, posts and conspiracies regarding Osama Bin Laden’s death. These images take me back almost 10 years ago when I was a new college graduate working in New York. My first job was as a stockbroker working in the World Trade Center,” said Nathan Harness.

“The morning of 9/11, when most people were watching the news unfold on television, I was at work on the 61st floor of 2 World Trade Center (the south tower). Employed for two days, I’d just taken the picture for my employee badge in the lobby. I was so proud of myself as I looked out from the 61st floor to the streets below. I remember thinking how impressed everyone back home would be if they could see the view from my office. Less than an hour later, I would look out those same windows in shock as I saw fire in the streets and office paper floating in the sky. It took time before our floor was evacuated, and I was able to get into a stairwell with thousands of others. The problem with a stairwell full of people is that you are at the mercy of those in front of you. You have no control over how quickly you move, and those who are slow create a resonance of delay throughout the line.

“It was at the 42nd floor that our tower was hit by the second plane. For the first time in my life I was truly scared. The shake of the building took me to one knee as I held on to the stair railing. It almost felt like falling as the reverberation of the plane impact ran throughout the building. With the noise, shaking and screams, I was certain that I was in the top of a building that was about to break off and take me with it. My brain raced quicker than I thought possible, desperate to squeeze out as many thoughts as possible before the final moments. I remembered my grandfather telling me that during WW2 as he pulled men off the beaches in Normandy, they would cry out for their mothers. So were my thoughts. I wanted to be comforted, loved and told it would be OK as I passed from this world into the next. But God had other plans for my life. The building slowly began to right itself, giving me the precious minutes I needed to get clear.

“Desperation and instinct were the only constants for the next several hours. I remember crying out to God in my head as I came down each flight of stairs. I prayed that He would give me strength to face whatever was to come. I was able to make it down to the mezzanine level and ultimately to the basement that connected the north and south towers. My last obstacle was to make it out of the building without being sliced by glass. The heat on top of the tower was blowing out windowpanes, which were exploding all around me. I remember a firefighter saying, “Don’t look up. Just run.” I ran into a crowd of people and finally looked up to see the gaping hole where smoke and flame were pouring out of the tower. The impulse to just run was overwhelming. I ran through the crowds and down the street for 15 to 20 minutes before 2 World Trade Center collapsed behind me.

“My life was spared that day and God provided me, a small town boy from Arkansas, an opportunity to see what death and destruction look like. It has taken me some time to process my fear, anger, guilt and sadness. The question that kept creeping back like a cancer to my apathy was simply, why? Was this just a chance occurrence that statistically was bound to happen to somebody? Was God punishing me for past wrongs? Or had God in His perfect timing and mercy allowed me to take part in a trial that could be used for His glory? “Deep down I knew the answer, but reason and emotion were always at war in my heart. At the Watermark Launch retreat for young adults last summer I prayed that God would give me purpose and a deeper understanding of Him. The speaker at Launch spoke to me in a way no other could have. The quote I heard that weekend still touches me today: “My story is not about a man’s faithfulness to God; it’s about God’s faithfulness to a man.”

“For so long I had thought of 9/11 as my tragedy. The real tragedy has been my apathy and selfishness. But I serve a God who is faithful. The semester after the Launch retreat the university where I work signed an agreement with the Saudi government, and now my classroom is about 50% Muslim students. God’s timing is never an accident, as He has brought me to a place of forgiveness and strength to share the gospel with a group of people I was once embittered toward. God continues to give me opportunities to share with students and other faculty in ways I never thought possible. I have also been blessed with an opportunity to lead a men’s community group where I can share both my joy and trials and the pain that has come from isolation.

“Paul says in Philippians 1:12, ‘…what has happened to me hasactually served to advance the gospel.” I pray that the trials of my life become opportunities to empathetically and emphatically share the love of Christ in ways that complacent tranquility never could.”

“Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel.” (Philippians 1:12)