The Disappointment That Saved a Life (9/11 Story)

There’s a young man by the name of Raya Katera, and he tells a really incredible story of his parents. This young man’s parents were visiting New York City. They had a departing flight the next day, but the wife had convinced the husband to cancel their flight the next day because she really wanted to see the World Trade Center.

She’d never seen it before. And so the husband reluctantly agreed, canceled the flights. The next day, when they’re supposed to go to the World Trade Center, they both woke up and realized they had slept right through their alarm.

And they woke up like mid-morning. So now he’s really bummed. He canceled their flight just to stay to do this thing that now they can’t even do. Just a total waste of time in his mind.

That date was September 11, 2001. As they woke up and they were like, okay, well there goes the day, the husband’s really not happy, they’re in the hotel room, let’s turn on the TV, they turn on the TV and they found out a plane had crashed into the Pentagon And their hair stood up as they said it was American Airlines Flight 77, the exact plane they were supposed to be on. And then a few minutes later, their hair stood up even more as they realized that 2 planes had crashed into the World Trade Center, which was the very building they were supposed to get a tour of that morning.

These people had literally cheated death twice in 24 hours without even realizing it, because things that had been a disappointment to them. Raya says, as I tell the story, I take a deep breath because my mom was 2 months pregnant with me at that time. 7 months later, I came into the world with both my father and my mother by my side. I am so grateful.

So grateful. Maybe, just maybe, friends, some of your greatest disappointments in your life are actually the greatest blessings of your life.