Just some early morning thoughts from me to you…
“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
John 15:13 (ESV)“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman….”
Thomas Paine (December 25, 1776)“Then I heard the Lord asking, ‘Whom should I send as a messenger to this people? Who will go for us?’ I said, ‘Here I am. Send me.’”
Isaiah 6: 8 (NLT)
Two months ago as a Nation, we remembered Memorial Day.
A respectful, solemn day when we remember those who paid the ultimate price, made the ultimate sacrifice, so that we might live in freedom today.
We stand on their shoulders. They raise us up. To be free to be all we can be.
Two weeks ago, we remembered the 249th birthday of our Nation, and the war for our Independence which followed establishing this Nation under God, which we still are blessed to enjoy today.
Four months from now we will celebrate Veteran’s Day as a Nation—honoring all those who have ever served in the armed forces of the United States of America.
All important days, and all recognized as National holidays for America.
Days for us to pause and remember all those who have stood in the gap for us so that we can work, play, sleep, raise our children, grandchildren and Godchildren, study, grow to be all we were created to be, express our faith openly without fear of punishment, and so much more—in freedom.
Three important days. Three days of 365 days each year.
Three days during which we are reminded, and we remember all those who did their duty, whom we should—Never Forget.
Never forget all those patriots, who like so many others, came back from their duty in pieces, in boxes, on stretchers and crutches, forever scarred and crippled, and bodies which lie in the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery and in thousands of cemeteries across this country and world.
With their gravesites marked by row-after-row of white crosses and Stars of David, and in some cases where the identity was unknown, white markers with the inscription— “Here Rests in Honored Glory – A Comrade in Arms – Known but to God.”
Never Forget. Three days?
Why not every day of every year? Never Forget!
Marking the 40th Anniversary of D-Day—June 6, 1944—President Ronald Reagan in Normandy, France on June 6, 1984, shared among other words, these—
“Yet you risked everything here. Why? We look at you and somehow, we know the answer. It was faith and belief; it was loyalty and love…
You all knew that some things are worth dying for…
Here in this place…let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words…I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.
Strengthened by their courage, heartened by their valor, and born by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals, for which they lived and died.”
Never Forget.
Their legacy of a belief in our Nation and in something better, in a hope for a brighter tomorrow, must be ours, and ours together as a Nation.
Taking up the torch they carried to honor them, to remember them every day with the freedom we have because of what they did for us.
In 1863, concluding his remarks of what is now known as the Gettysburg Address, President Abraham Lincoln left us with this to remember—
“…From these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God…shall not perish from the earth.”
Never forget.
For all of our 365 days each year, while on earth.
Because they stood in the gap for us.
“Never Forget” days! All of them.
In His Name–Scott
Never Forget—now and every day, and as you watch this powerful video and listen to John Williams anthem “Hymn to the Fallen.”
