Speaking in the Light – 5-26

Don’t Say You Don’t Remember!
In the movie that inspired people to remember the sacrifice of those young men back in the 1940’s who made up what Tom Brokaw so eloquently labeled, “the greatest generation,” the tagline of “Saving Private Ryan” went something like this: “In the last Great Invasion, of the last Great War, the greatest danger for eight men was saving one.”
When you get right down to it, the true priority of this life must always be about placing relationships above all else. Even God seems to emphasize over and over again in Scripture the importance that He places and the value He sees in every human life.
When Jesus came on His mission to redeem mankind, He made His invasion from heaven to earth and the greatest danger for that One God-Man was to save all. His glorious goal was to save people and not necessarily the planet because a planet without people is a lonely and desolate experience.
Will we wait until it is too late to realize that investing in a relationship with God and one another is really what this life is all about? It isn’t the Hokey Pokey after all.
What does Memorial Day mean to you? Will you take time to remember others? The worst forgetfulness of all is to forget people. Don’t say you don’t remember. Memorial Day Weekend is a wonderful time that has been carved right into our chaotic schedules to be reminded and to be concerned about others and for their good, for your own good!
He who thinks of others to love others and to remember others never has to face the ugly regret about time that was wasted or misspent.
When God brings others to mind, it gives me the specific opportunity to pray for them, to thank God for them, to empathize with them for the journey they made and to celebrate them for doing it. It allows me to communicate the truth that those precious lives are instrumentally harmonized with mine.
I wouldn’t be making the music I do today without their contribution to the score. Let’s face it, you and I wouldn’t be the same without them. I might not even have the life that I can now live without their efforts, without their hard work and their loving sacrifice.
Remembering others helps me appreciate the strategic individuals who helped make me who and what I am today. And we must take the time to pay tribute, to tip our caps, to offer applause to those who have gone before us. Memorial Day Weekend is a perfect time for us to look back and remember and say “thank you,” to those who laid it all down so we would have something worthwhile to pick up.
It is time to venture up into the attic of your memories and break out some of those boxes that for too long have been doing nothing but gathering dust and bring some wonderful people back to life. God bless those who remember our deceased veterans.
God bless those who show their gratitude by keeping the memories alive by telling the stories of the adventures of those men and women who helped mold and shape you into “the you” that you are today. I believe that you have a better handle on who you really are to become when you take the time to learn where you have come from and who you have come from! Even if the journey is difficult and brings a tear or two, it is necessary.
We do no good by pretending that none of it ever happened.
People need to be loved. People need to be heard. Don’t say you don’t remember! Are you willing to walk with others through the valley of the shadow of death knowing that even though you can’t fix the pain and the hurt and the loss, you can still be there and help keep the memories of those precious lives alive?
I believe in giving flowers to the living. I think there is nothing sadder by waiting until it is too late to share the fact that you loved another. Are we so busy and blinded by the projects all around us that we miss the people who matter most?
It is Memorial Day. Remember to celebrate the living. John Wesley said, “Do all the good you can by all the means you can… In all the ways you can, in all the places you can…At all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as God allows you to.” People need to know that we care about them and love them. It is time to start now.
Write Pastor Rudy pastorrudytlc@comcast.net
.