Remembrance

For many families this is a weekend for bar-b-q and fun in the pool.  I have many wonderful memories of the whole family at my grandparents pool on weekends like this, or at the beach or a spring where we would enjoy hamburgers and hotdogs and get burnt to a crisp while splashing in the surf or tubing down the rapids at Rock Springs in the wonderfully cold water.  I don't know about any of you, but I never really thought about why we celebrate this unofficial "Beginning of Summer" weekend when I was a kid.  I just enjoyed it.

Now that I'm grown I have a better understanding and know that this day is set aside as a remembrance.  I love that I live in the USA and enjoy so many freedoms the rest of the world, especially women in the rest of the world, do not have.  I thank God for the veterans who have fought and especially for those who have died for that.  Today is a day to remember them.

But, even as we remember their sacrifice, there is one who paid a bigger price for us, and he has also left us a symbol of remembrance.  I was blessed with the opportunity to worship with my brother and his wife yesterday, and, as we took communion as the ultimate symbol of remembrance, the pastor challenged us to remember the life and death of the One who gave all for us.  He did not give himself for us out of a sense of duty, nor out of a sense of pride, but out of the purest love, agape. He didn't give himself for the life of a friend, or even for the life of a country, but for the redemption of the whole world and everyone in it.  Most importantly he didn't fight in a battle to save his own life, but he freely laid it down because he knew it was the only way any could have true peace with God and even with ourselves.  This Memorial Day remember and be thankful.