05/25/2026
I look at this picture every year on Memorial Day and the older I get, the more deeply I feel it.
- The freedom to publicly preach Christ
- The children I'll laugh with today
- The vacation I will enjoy with Jana later this summer
- The life we've been blessed to build together
.. all enabled by young men and women who did not get to enjoy them, so that you and I could.
And they were YOUNG. Ronald Reagan put this in striking perspective:
“It is, in a way, an odd thing to honor those who died in defense of our country, in defense of us, in wars far away. The imagination plays a trick. We see these soldiers in our mind as old and wise. We see them as something like the Founding Fathers, grave and gray haired. But most of them were boys when they died, and they gave up two lives—the one they were living and the one they would have lived. When they died, they gave up their chance to be husbands and fathers and grandfathers. They gave up their chance to be revered old men. They gave up everything for our country, for us. And all we can do is remember.”
From the bottom of our hearts, thank you to every family who sacrificed a loved one so that we could enjoy our loved ones today.
"Greater love has no man than this; that someone lay down his life for his friends."
– John 15:3