It's June 2nd. It's my birthday. So I'm taking the liberty of bending the rules and posting this Memorial Day blog.
During a recent detour from my planned agenda, God took me through a private Memorial Day ceremony with Him. I was reminded of His past faithfulness. The memories were every color of the emotional spectrum and I remembered how He guided me through them all. My detour turned into a divine appointment.
I hope you had a meaningful Memorial Day weekend, however you spent it. I also hope that you take your own quiet time with the Lord, remembering His promises and His faithfulness. You can borrow my own “birthday verse” to start that conversation if you'd like: Psalm 139.
Memorial Day Meditations
Since I was a little girl, I’ve always been sensitive to the conflicting emotions surrounding Memorial Day weekend. On one side, a celebration of the beginning of summer vacation, with my birthday soon to arrive. On the other, the annual visits to our family cemetery to place flowers on relatives’ graves and Memorial Day ceremonies honoring our fallen soldiers.
When I was in high school, I wanted to go straight into the military after graduation, so I invited an Army recruiter to visit the house. Afterward, I was told by my ex-Marine, WWII-era father that he wouldn’t sign the papers to allow his only daughter to join the military. He made me a deal: If I attended college and decided I wanted to join after that, he would give me his blessing.
In my freshman year, I took a course in military history, which also included being enrolled in Army ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) for that semester. I met confident cadets and I was able to feed my love of adventure, including an exhilarating outing to rappel from an 80-foot high rock formation! I signed up for a long weekend at Fort Indiantown Gap, an Army base in Pennsylvania. I loved being outdoors and I envisioned a grown up version of Girl Scout Camp. I was so naive.
I was given a brand new set of BDUs (battle dress uniform) for the weekend. Having never been washed, the collar on the uniform chafed both sides of my neck red and raw. The times of hiking I envisioned on worn paths were actually land navigation drills, with a compass as my only guide through thorny brambles. I lay prone on an M-16 firing range in humid 80-degree heat, in full BDUs and a Kevlar helmet, daydreaming about time in a pool. Our nightly sleep was invaded by guard duty as we took turns being sentries, only to be roused by Reveille coming through the loudspeakers at dawn. During a tactical field exercise, I ate MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) as one of the Senior cadets smeared my face with camouflage paint. We waited in the woods as twilight turned to dark, hoping to ambush the Seniors with our M-16s filled with blanks. I was terrified to hear a bear huffing in the darkness, only to realize it was one of my classmates, snoring because he fell asleep. After that weekend I decided not to enlist. To say I am immensely grateful for the sacrifices of military men and women is an understatement.
In the last year of Dad’s life, I was able to spend time with him in the TV room at his nursing home. He loved watching movies about WWII, especially since his Marine platoon wasn’t able to see combat before the war ended. I didn’t usually enjoy them, but this particular movie caught my imagination and stirred my faith. Hacksaw Ridge was directed by Mel Gibson and based on the true story of World War II American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, a Seventh-day Adventist and conscientious objector who served during the Battle of Okinawa. He refused to carry or use a weapon and became the first man in American history to receive the Medal of Honor without firing a shot.
Watching that movie, I was both aghast and inspired. Aghast at the devastation of the natural landscape and the lives in it. Inspired by this soldier’s bravery as he kept praying “Please, Lord, help me get one more”. The juxtaposition of my weekend ROTC training came back to mind. Being in the beauty of nature surrounded by the ugliness of training for war. I thought of Romans 8:23 “all of creation is groaning. . . “ and then John 16:33 “I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have trials, but take heart, I have overcome the world”.
I will meditate on our fallen soldiers this weekend with gratitude for their lives and their sacrifices. I will also meditate on Jesus, who in the midst of the brokenness of this life will bring me the peace and beauty of heaven, in this life and the one to come.