Memorial Day 2018
We stop today to honor those who paid for our freedom with their lives. I am grateful, and I pray my children are grateful, to the men and women as well as the families and friends of the men and women who have sacrificed their lives for the country I love.
I grew up with a double dose of patriotism. Until age 12 I was an Air Force brat, living among the service people who were willing to do what their country required to ensure continued freedom, and that has always made me grateful. But my mom added another dimension to my appreciation with her stories of life without any semblance of democracy. As a child, my mother lived through the horrors of war then the deprivations of Communism- and those deprivations ran deeper than the lack of food and material sufficiency. My mother learned that independent thinking was discouraged, that the “state” version of history and current events should never be questioned, that loyalty was owed the government, not the family. These stories have formed a deep and abiding appreciation for what our country has to offer.
But our country, my friends, is far from perfect. On this Memorial Day, as my gratitude goes to those who have sacrificed, my thoughts turn as well to the work that desperately needs doing in order for our patriotic ideals to become real for our people.
“One nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.”
Our nation is not one. We have citizens and leaders working and voting for individual gain, not for unity.
Our nation is not under God. “Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” If we as a nation and specifically we as the Christ-followers of our nation are not known for our love, then our nation has lost its way.
Liberty and justice are not known by all. The inequities are deeply rooted and yet invisible to many as we turn a blind eye to suffering and inequity that does not personally affect us.
This Memorial Day, I want to begin to truly repent. We have a lot of work to do.
Father, thank you for the selflessness and sacrifice of so many who have provided the freedoms we have in this country. As we pause in gratitude, I pray our eyes would turn to the work yet to be done. Open our eyes to the things in our country that break your heart, and I pray that we as your people would be broken-hearted before you in repentance. Oh God, we want to be known for our love. We want to hate evil and love good; show us how to turn our courts into true halls of justice as we seek reconciliation along the lines that currently divide us. I pray all the generations will join together in becoming a people know for love. #prayersformychildren
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