Listen to His Whispers
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Blog Post #68
A story of Divine Intervention
Ari Schonbrun worked in the World Trade Center for Cantor-Fitzgerald. On September 11 he knew, without a doubt, that God was looking out for him.
"September 11, 2001, started as an absolutely magnificent Tuesday... a gorgeous fall day, there wasn't a cloud in the sky...
At 6:40 in the morning, with briefcase and coffee in hand, Ari was saying goodbye to his wife and kids in his usual manner, "have a great day... love you..." when his wife asked if he had done the Scholastic book order with his eight-year old son. "She said, you're not leaving this house until you do the book order! And for the next 20 minutes I whittled my son down to two books... ironically, the ones he picked were from the Survivor series.
"God was looking out for me that day, there's no other reason why I'm here today. You see, my son's book order was due on Monday but he left it in school on Friday. My wife wrote a note to the teacher on Monday asking her if he could have an extra day to put the order in. She agreed, making sure that he had the book order with him when he left school. Had my son brought the book order home on Friday, I would have been in my office at eight o'clock that morning and dead.
"Instead, I got to the World Trade Center at 8:40. My office is on the 101st floor... I was changing elevators at 78... when there was an explosion. I thought a bomb had gone off in the elevator. The entire building shook, and I mean shook: the lights went out, the place filled with smoke, I was thrown off my feet. I am not embarrassed to tell you I was screaming. I had never been so scared...
"In the smoke and chaos I came upon a co-worker, Virginia... she was on the elevator that I almost got into... the doors, she said, had started to close but they jammed open about a foot.... the walls had collapsed, the ceiling had collapsed, a cable snapped and was sparking... igniting a wall of fire. Virginia jumped out, suffering third degree burns.
"'Ari, please help me. Please, whatever you do, don't leave me.' I promised Virginia that we would get out. Here's the irony: Virginia was hired as an internal auditor. She audited my department and almost got me fired. We weren’t on friendly terms, but you know what? God put me in this situation literally as a test. I did the only thing I knew and that was to help her.
"A fire warden suddenly said, 'take the stairwell on the left'... Here's another interesting point. The Trade Center has hundreds of staircases, most of them go down 10, 20, 30 flights and that's it. You then had to find another stairwell to continue down. This one went from 78 all the way down... and I see the emergency lights on in the stairwell... two people behind us had backup flashlights... I looked at Virginia's feet and thought, thank God she's wearing flats.
"Three flights down... another miracle... my mobile phone rang... you could never ever get reception in Tower One and all of a sudden my phone rang — in the stairwell, in the middle of the building. It's my wife telling me something about a plane going into the building. I had no idea what she was talking about and said now is not a good time to talk and hung up. Others tried my phone with no luck. I said, 'Thank you, God.' It was comforting to me that my wife knew I was alive.
"We got down to about the 50th floor and Virginia says to me, 'Ari, I can't go on, I can't do it'... I thought, if she sits down, she may never get up and if she doesn't get up there is a good chance we're gonna die and honestly, that wasn't on my agenda for the day. So I said, 'Virginia, you can do this'... and now I'm coaching, counting down floors 45, 44, 42... you're doing great... we were doing great until we got to the 38th floor, it was backed up with people... I knew Virginia was in trouble, I mean it was bad... I yell out, saying I have a burn victim here, if you're a paramedic please come help, otherwise please step to the right and let us through so we can get help and people did... this stairwell was two people wide... the people squeezed over and they opened a path... it was unbelievable!
"When we got down to the first floor, a fire warden said... 'the way out was through the garage level.' I figured he knows, so I turned to Virginia... look, we already went down 78 flights of stairs what's another four or five... about two flights down, all of a sudden the door on the first floor opens... some guy who I didn't see yells down, 'Where are you people going?' I yelled back up, 'We're going out through the garage.' He goes. 'No, no, you can't get out through the garage, you have to come back up here to the first floor.' Virginia said a few things that I can't repeat... I can't imagine the pain she was in... I later heard, there were people on the garage level that never got out. Who was that guy? And why did he pick that moment to open the door?... that guy was an angel who helped save our lives that day.
"We exited the building... police directed us to a triage with an ambulance... I helped Virginia into the ambulance and breathed a sigh of relief... thank God she's getting medical attention, something I couldn't give her... I turned around, looked up at the buildings... a guy standing next to me said two jetliners hit the buildings, they're calling it a terrorist attack.
"The ambulance was ready to leave... when all of a sudden Virginia said, 'Ari you're coming with us’... I wanted to stay, to help look for my friends, other co-workers, I just wanted to help... but she turned to the ambulance driver, 'We're not leaving unless he comes with us'... she was so adamant that the driver said, 'Hop in'... it was only one of a few ambulances that actually got away from the scene that day... Virginia thanks me every single day for saving her life but I say it was Virginia who saved my life. I would have been standing at the base of that building when it came down and I would be dead, no question.
"I learn a lot that day. Today, I'm wherever my children need me: class plays, field trips, whatever. I want to make sure that I'm a part of their lives now, not later.
"But there's another side to it, the spiritual side. I realized God was giving me a second chance... to change. God is always giving us messages, telling us to do something, to make a difference, to change...
"I decided to become a better person and one of the things that I took upon myself was to stop swearing... no more drunken sailor curse words and you know what happened? The people around me first laughed but after a while, knowing that Ari Schonbrun doesn't curse anymore apologize when a curse word slips out. See the effect my decision had.
“I owned it... wrote it down and put it on the refrigerator so I could be reminded, it's that important.... We have to start with ourselves... change, this is the way to make a difference... do it and you'll see the effect change will have on you and everybody else.
"God whispers to our minds and our hearts, but we are so busy running through life. Change: Listen to His whispers.”
Listen to Ari Schonbrun’s entire story here.
Ari, author of Miracles and Fate on Floor 78, is now a motivation speaker and life coach.
Peace Affirming Prayer
Peace fills my mind and flows through all my thoughts.
Peace fills my heart and flows through all my love.
Peace fills my soul and goodwill flows to all.
Peace fills my being and permeates all my activities.
Peace within. Peace without. Peace everywhere.
Peace in my mind. Peace in my heart. Peace in my soul.
Peace in me. Peace in my home. Peace in my country. Peace in my world.
Peace everywhere.
Amen.
Ukrainian folklore characterizes pysanky as a symbolic, talismanic writing that invokes a higher Universal Power for help, while believing with faithful certainty that It will. The contemporary version of this characterization is a paper-and-pen journaling practice called prayer writing that develops a personal relationship with God.
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