Yesterday I conducted a wedding ceremony for a young bride marrying a Marine. He wore his dress blues to the wedding which, of course, always appears very impressive. I admire greatly all of our military, but I have special ties with the Marines because my son was in the Marine Corps for four years with two tours to Iraq. I still believe that their uniforms are the most impressive and heart-stirring of all the military branches!This young Marine wore a string of five medals on his chest which made his appearance even more impressive. It took me back a number of years ago to my father, who was a WWII veteran from the Army. After participating in the war in Europe my father left the Army to pursue a civilian life and raise a family (I'm glad for my sake!). But one of the remnants of his time in the Army was never really recovered - his medals. He had never received any of the medals that he was due from his time serving our country in Europe.
He ran across a fellow church attender, who was also a WWII veteran, who proceeded to tell him that he mailed off to the Veterans Administration to request his medals. Thirty years after serving in WWII he was sent those medals upon which he showed them to my Father. After obtaining all the information he needed to mail the Veterans Administration, Dad finally received his six medals from WWII some 30 years after the fact.
At the time Julie and I were living in Pennsylvania and so on one of our visits back to Toledo, Dad's eyes gleamed as he prompted me, "Do you want to see something?" He went into the back room and pulled out a number of small boxes and proceeded to proudly show me all of his medals. I said, "Dad, why don't you let me take your medals back with me to Pennsylvania, and I will have them professionally mounted for you so that you can proudly show them off." He was very reluctant, but finally gave them to me and so I took them home and proudly had them mounted in a glassed-enclosed wall display.
Upon my next visit (we usually visited twice a year) I took the mounted medals as a gift to present him and he proudly hung them over the his chair in the living room. Even today 15 years after he died, they still hang in my mother's living room.
When we become Christians, God gives us a special gift - medals to hang proudly for others to see. These medals aren't made of gold or silver with multi-colored ribbons. These are His medals of mercy, grace, faithfulness, forgiveness, and love. In a world that's constantly consuming our energy and attention, we have forgotten each one of these badges of honor given to us just because we are His children. God wants to remind us this Memorial Day Weekend to bring the medals out of the boxes and display them for all the world to see. Let them know that we are His children!
This special weekend I want to honor my Father, my Father-in-law, my Brother-in-law, my Brother, my Son and the countless thousands of others who have served our country with courage and honor and commitment.
There aren't enough medals to express our gratitude!
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