Memorial Day is upon us. Approximately one-fourth of this nation does not know why we celebrate. They think it has to do with the beginning of summer. Memorial Day is the day we remember those who have fought for our freedoms. More particularly those who have died so we have the right to say and do as we please.
Plenty of soldiers have sacrificed their lives for us to have freedom of church, freedom of speech, and the right to bear arms. But how many of us recall those that have lost their lives for us.
John 15:13 reads, Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for another. This is what members of the military do every day. Whether they are deployed or in the states. They are training for any possible disaster or attack imaginable.
In these last decades, we’ve seen soldiers come back home without legs or arms. Sometimes both. They end up learning to walk all over again on prosthetic limbs and using mechanical arms in order to live what we consider a normal life. However, there’s nothing that can fix the emotional toil they have to live with.
For an experiment, take a belt and attach just one arm down to your side. You’re not allowed to use it for a whole day. You might think that it’s not that difficult until you try to do it. Imagine how hard draining spaghetti from a pan would be with only one good arm.
Now, fold your leg up and just try to walk from the living room to the bathroom. You’d end up hopping because you have only one leg. These soldiers have to learn to walk all over again. And that doesn’t include the toil it puts on their families.
Spouses and children have had to live with the fact that they’d almost lost a loved one. Some wives of men who have come back injured end up divorcing them. People shake their heads and looked down on these women. However, it’s not easy to live with someone who’s lost a limb. It’s a hardship that takes an extremely strong spouse and a maturity level most of us will never have to comprehend.
We need to keep all these soldiers in our minds, along with their families. Anyone who has lost a limb or life for the freedom of this country needs to be applauded. We need to thank those that have served in the past and made it back in one piece physically. There’s no way we can know how they are doing emotionally.
And ask yourself what type of sacrifice do you make for others? Is it one that will be remembered for a day, a week or a month? And is it as much a hardship as these soldiers we send to war?
Also, on this day, let’s not forget the one who made a sacrifice so we could all have eternal life. Jesus Christ hung on a cross for us all.
Today, especially, we need to remember them all.
