Senath Mo.Class of '58
"Lets 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 ..
Yea, 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.
Submitted by
Shirley (Collins) Rickman