The song is called “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” by Alan Jackson and it was written to commemorate September 11, 2001. It was a day when all of us, especially Americans, were a collective in our grief. We were all touched in some way by the events of that day and it literally did feel like our world stopped turning. But we found out that we had each other. We talked with each other. We cried with each other. We held each other close.
That’s not what dug into the painful places this morning. The title of the song opened a floodgate of memories for me…so many moments when the world stopped turning in my life.
At fourteen when I woke up alone in the wee hours of the morning after watching our house burn to the ground the night before. I was at a friend’s house, but without Christ, she had no real comfort to offer.
I know exactly where I was when my world stopped turning.
It was a restaurant where everyone was eating breakfast and going on about their day and no one seemed to notice the disheveled, nineteen year old girl sitting at the table next to them, shaking. They never knew that she had been raped the night before.
That’s where I was when my world stopped turning.
That morning I was sitting in my car in the hospital parking lot. I was in shock after walking into my niece’s hospital room only to find out she had died in the middle of the night…and no one, not even my family, had called me.
I remember where I was when my world stopped turning.
That September day in 2007, his birthday to be exact, when I stood in the doorway of our house and watched as my husband of 23 years drove away.
I will never forget where I was when my world stopped turning.
On Sunday morning in August when I was in my bedroom frantically packing because I had received the call that if I wanted to see my mother before she passed, I needed to come quickly. And as I was headed out the door to get to the airport, the phone rang again to tell me it was too late.
That’s where I was when the world, my world stopped turning.
These are only a few of the world-stopping moments that flooded through my mind this morning. Every day the world stops turning for someone, somewhere. But because it is not a collective grief, most of us don’t even notice. We go on as if nothing happened.
Yesterday was World Suicide Prevention Day. A young pastor took his life the night before and perhaps that adds to my grief today. We don’t think of pastors having grief, or mental illness, or whatever shook his world enough to make a man who knew and loved God give up hope here on this earth. I grew up in a pastor’s home and I have watched the loneliness and sorrow my dad and mother felt. And I am pretty sure of one thing. The family of that young pastor – their world stopped turning yesterday.
We have to become more aware of the pain and loss around us. We will never notice if the world has stopped turning for someone unless we are willing to look, to listen, and to love.
Give yourself a minute or two to listen to this song and see if anything rises up in you. For me, I’m going to be a little more aware of the turning of my world today. And if it stops for someone around me, I want to know it.