One minute later, at 9:01 a.m. on April 19, 1995, we all heard it from our classroom six miles away: the explosion that was the Oklahoma City bombing at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.
I said aloud to the class, “What was that?”
We paused.
And then I continued to teach.
This was 1995, long before live, up-to-the-minute news streamed across our screens. It was not until later in the day that we learned what had happened.
In the days and weeks that followed, I was fortunate to be one of several people able to offer trauma-based responses to those who had experienced suffering.
Mind you, I was young. I did not yet have the training or perspective to offer the kind of clinical care I would hope to offer now. And yet, there I was, in Oklahoma City, responding.
A Christian church experienced major devastation that day. First Baptist Church, located across the street from the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, suffered major damage in the bombing.
A few years later, I was fortunate to purchase this stained-glass lighthouse, created from the debris of the broken stained glass from within the church. I bought it myself at First Baptist Church in Oklahoma City.
I hold on to it as a reminder of the trauma of that experience, the hope of restoration, and the light that can still shine after rupture.
