The 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing & Trauma Response

I had started teaching class at exactly 9:00 a.m. at the university where I was a faculty member in Oklahoma City.

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.