An Incredible Night

I’m still working out my words for the new year. Normally a New Year celebration looks like a bonfire at my in-laws and watching the ball drops on TV in cities across America. 

This year my friends and I rang in 2025 in a jazz club in New Orleans. 

It was an incredible night – easily my favorite New Year’s Eve. After midnight we headed to Bourbon Street – an obligatory stop when you’re out in The Big Easy. A couple of the guys in our group wanted a drink, so we stopped in a bar and warmed up by the fire. Bourbon Street was still insane when we walked out around 1:15. At my husband’s suggestion (who hates crowds) we left and got late-night pizza a few blocks away. 

The pizza parlor was oddly quiet – a line stretched to the door, but there was a spirit of contentment. Patrons dug into their pizza, chatting with friends as if it was two o’clock in the afternoon. Strangers smiled to each other, offering their tables to the next people when they finished with a parting “Happy New Year!”

A TV screen live-streamed the action of Bourbon Street -still going strong as we cleaned up our trash around 2 a.m. and headed to the hotel. 

While we walked, we talked about what an incredible night it was and how safe we’d felt. There were cops every ten feet. It was clear the city was working to keep its New Year’s revelers safe. We neared the hotel, and cop cars were speeding down Poydras. They crowded the street in front of Harrah’s where someone had supposedly been shot. 

We ducked into the safety of our hotel and went to bed to the sound of sirens, assuming it was typical city noises and drama from across the street.

A few hours later we rolled out of bed to the news.

Incredible Indeed

According to the dictionary, the word incredible means impossible to believe. Normally we use the word for good things – a book that I thoroughly enjoyed and I can’t stop thinking about is incredible. A speech that moves me to the point of making change is incredible. New Year’s Eve was incredible – impossible to believe – a really great night with friends. A devastating night for so many. 

The what if’s keep rolling through my mind. What if my husband loved crowds and we’d hung around Bourbon Street? What if the driver came an hour earlier and one block over where we stood? Was he trying to come down Jackson Square at midnight during the Fleur de Lis drop? What if the IED’s had gone off? What if what if what if?

Did we walk past an IED? Is the white truck I saw gunning it to make a green light regardless of pedestrians all around the same one that took the lives of so many?

Were the victims some of the people we enjoyed a jazz show with? Did the girl who served me a cafe au lait, chatting like we were friends, get off work and head to Bourbon? Did I brush shoulders with people who never made it home?

Where is God in this?

This isn’t talked about often, but the presence of good and evil is undeniable. In my book, Finding Gideon, I often mentioned the feeling of spiritual warfare around me. The Bible talks about the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms in Ephesians 6:12.

The culture of New Orleans often celebrates Voodoo and the undead, and every time I visit I feel a sense of evil and unease. Shockingly, the night of the attacks was the only time I’ve been in New Orleans and felt peace. What if angels were storming The Big Easy? 

As I grapple with the events of New Year’s Eve, one thing is clear – a lot of the plans meant for evil were foiled. Some plans meant for evil still happened, and innocent lives were lost. The crime was terrible, but to my knowledge, not a single IED was detonated. The events of January 1st were devastating, but it could have been so so much worse. 

I remember reading Kate Bowler’s book, Everything Happens for a Reason (and other lies I’ve loved), when she battles with one of life’s hardest questions. Why do some people – kind, God-fearing, law-abiding people- die from cancer and others don’t? Why are some saved in a natural disaster or killing spree and others aren’t? Why do I walk away from an evening in New Orleans feeling protected and loved when others are being grieved over?

I don’t know.

I know that as a Christian, I believe sin entered the world with Adam and Eve, and with sin came pain, evil, toil, and so much more.  I believe in the hope of eternal life in a world free of sin and pain someday, thanks to Jesus who came to wipe away our sin. I believe God is good and sovereign even when it doesn’t feel like it. This is the truth I cling to.

Today, I praise God for protection, and I pray for the survivors and the families and friends of those we lost. Pray with me.

Soli Deo gloria