Ten years ago today I was on Nevin's Lake in Michigan. My two children, several of their friends, and my husband and I were drifting lazily around on a pontoon boat on what appeared to be a fish-less body of water. Everyone else had a pole or two dangling over the side. I was reveling in doing nothing for once.

Our friends from Ohio owned a house beside this beautiful lake, tucked deep into the pine forests of Michigan's upper peninsula. Paul and I had been there many times before but always in the wintertime. The area boasts hundreds of miles of snowmobile trails and not much else, at least not in the dead of winter. This year we decided to forgo our usual summertime Outer Banks vacation with our family and try a trip to the U.P. instead to see what lay beneath all those mountains of snow.

Meandering around in the stillness with only the birds, cicadas, and each other for company, this was a far-cry from our beach adventures. While it was indeed beautiful, it was also more work. I actually had to cook since there were no restaurants close-by. Thankfully we had brought groceries since catching fish seemed out of the question.

I noticed several men working at one of the other houses scattered along the lakeside. A radio was on and the volume was cranked, but rather than music there was just talking, interspersed with the occasional siren sound. I recognized Peter Jennings' voice even though I could only make out a word now and then. Words like "disaster" and "explosion".

"Something has happened," I told my family. "Something bad." I just wanted to get back to the house where a satellite dish awaited. My stomach had a knot that got bigger and bigger, the longer we delayed.

I wanted to grab my unconcerned family by their respective t-shirts and force them to shore with me, but they were accustomed to my propensity for worry when there was nothing to worry about and they were unmoved in their determination to catch at least one fish.

Finally boredom came to my aid and they gave it up and headed for shore. The pontoon had barely reached the bank before I jumped to land and hustled into the house. My son Erik came with me. He had teased me, along with the others, about my need to make something out of nothing, but he came with me none-the-less. The others lolly-gagged at the boat, collecting our things, securing the ropes, covering things up.

I snatched up the remote and turned on the TV. Just in time to see the Twin Towers fall. I was still standing, and Erik was standing beside me. I'm sure our mouths were agape as we stood there, frozen. Suddenly Erik ran. Out the door toward the lake, yelling, telling the others to "Come! Something terrible has happened!"

They rushed in where I was still standing. I was thinking this must be one of those "dramatizations". It can't be real. But they showed it again and again. The smoke, the people jumping from windows, the buildings collapsing in piles of smoldering rubble.

We stayed in front of the TV for hours. Vacation forgotten. Feeling sick for the dead and dying. Feeling grief for the families who were suffering unimaginable loss. Feeling thankful for the safety of our own family.

We talked about the suddenly forgotten prohibitions to public praying. We listened as our president talked about the attacks on freedom and that this we would be repaid. We wondered if more attacks were coming and suddenly being tucked far away from civilization seemed like a good place to be.

Today I hear things I never dreamed I would hear one short decade after this tragedy. Prayer has once again been forbidden at the "official" memorial in New York City today. Plans for a mosque, to be built at ground zero, are defended by the very people who should find such an affront unthinkable. What better way to disrespect those who lost their lives, and the lives of those they loved, that day? I listen in amazement as airports harass American travelers, yet give deference to those who follow the religion responsible for the murder of so many innocents.

As Christ-followers are we called to love those who have hurt us, who have done evil to our great nation? Yes. Are we called to allow them free access to hurt us again? No. I sometimes imagine I can hear them laughing at our naivete, our stupidity, our inexplicable need to be "politically correct."

I didn't plan this entry to be a rant on the way things have become. I meant it to be a tribute to those who have paid the ultimate price for our freedom. I meant it to honor those who were murdered by cowards who would slaughter men, women, and children, and then try to justify their faceless attacks by calling them acts of war.

Forgiveness is essential to our own well-being. Remembrance is too. If we forget the evil that comes from blindly following any leader, we will suffer atrocities again, perhaps even worse than those we've seen before.

To honor those who have gone on ahead, we must remember to think for ourselves, to ask why something is or is not, to search for truth, and to pursue what we know is right. To honor the fallen we must be willing to take a stand even if it costs something. To honor our soldiers, our fallen heroes, and the victims of rabid hatred we must allow the freedom to disagree while defending our country from those who would destroy it.

And we must never, never, NEVER forget.