LEOBARB'S
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TODD
BEAMER - LET'S ROLL!!!
"JESUS,
HELP ME!"
THE FAITH OF TODD BEAMER
"I don't think we're going
to get out of this thing."
"I'm going to have to go
out on faith."
*******
It was the voice of Todd
Beamer, the passenger, and Wheaton College
graduate, who said, "Let's
roll!" as he led the charge against the terrorists
who had hijacked United Flight
93, the one, you will remember, that
crashed in the Pennsylvania
countryside.
***
The whole world knows how
brave Beamer and his fellow passengers were on
September 11th, but this
week we learned more fully what buttressed that bravery:
Faith in Jesus Christ!
Todd died as he lived, a
faithful evangelical believer.
***
In an article titled "The
Real Story of Flight 93," Newsweek reveals gripping
new details from the actual
transcripts of the now-recovered cockpit voice recorder.
"Todd had been afraid," Newsweek
relates,
"More than once, he cried
out for his Savior."
***
After passengers were herded
to the back of the jet, Beamer called the GTE
Customer Center in Oakbrook,
Illinois. He told supervisor Lisa Jefferson about the
hijacking. The passengers
were planning to jump the terrorists, he said.
And then he asked her to
pray with him.
***
As Newsweek relates, "Beamer
kept a Lord's Prayer bookmark in his
Tom Clancy novel, but he
didn't need any prompting. He began to recite
the ancient litany, and Jefferson
joined him:
Our Father which art in Heaven,
Hallowed be Thy Name."
***
As they finished, Beamer
added, "Jesus, help me!"
And then, Beamer and his
fellow passengers prayed a prayer that has comforted millions
down through the centuries,
the prayer that David wrote in a time of great anguish:
The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want. Yes, though I walk through
the valley of the shadow
of death, I will fear no evil.
***
And then the famous last
words:
"Are you guys ready?
Let's roll!!!"
***
We now know from the cockpit
voice recorder that Beamer and other passengers
wrestled with the hijackers
and forced the plane to crash into the ground,
killing themselves, but foiling
what was believed to have been the hijackers' plan
to fly Flight 93 into the
Capitol or the White House.
***
As Christians, we know that
God can bring good out of evil. In Todd Beamer, the
world witnesses a faith that
held up in the extremity of fear, a faith that is even now
comforting his widow and
two young sons.
***
Lisa Beamer told NBC's Dateline,
"You know, in the Lord's Prayer, it asks us to forgive
our trespasses as we forgive
those who trespass against us." "As Todd prayed this prayer
in the last moments of his
life, in a way," Lisa said, "He was forgiving those people for
what they were doing, the
most horrible thing you could ever do to someone."
***
It wasn't Todd Beamer's job
to fight terrorists. He was just a passenger,
who along with several others,
did what he didn't have to do, but foiled
a terrible evil that might
have been done to his country.
***
As Flight 93 hurtled towards
destruction, Todd Beamer could not have known
that his quiet prayers would
ultimately be heard by millions, that the story of his
last acts on earth would
be a witness to the Lord he loved
and served and a lasting
example of true heroism.
THIS PAGE DEDICATED TO THE
MEMORY OF THESE FIVE FALLEN HEROES!
