Good morning,
Praise the Lord for this Friday before Memorial Day. Janice, Jeremy, Micah, and Simeon are traveling to Vermont today to spend the weekend with our friends, Warren and Linda Ayer. Alice and Laureen are also driving up there this afternoon. I am planning to join them in Vermont this Sunday after the worship services.
Praise the Lord for America, the Beautiful. May our Lord, who alone is the King of all the nations, shed His grace upon this great land, a great nation. It's interesting to ponder what American's actually think of Memorial Day. It is, in part, a generational thing, but most American's nowadays more look at Memorial Day as the day when summer begins, the weekend when the swimming pool opens, or a weekend of major sales events. Or, perhaps, it's just great to have a three-day weekend with a paid day off, and time to spend time with your family and friends around a barbecue. All of those things are certainly true in our generation, but obviously the real reason why we celebrate Memorial Day is to remember.
Memorial Day is a day set aside to remember those who have given their lives in service to this country, that we might enjoy the life that we now do. More than simple remembrance, however, it is also meant to promote healing. Memorial Day came to be after the Civil War, when healing was needed between the North and South. Memorial Day is designed to be a day of remembrance and of healing, but as we think about remembering and healing on Memorial Day, it occurred to me that we need to remember more than just those who lost their lives. We also need to remember those who were left behind, the families of those who died. Husbands and wives were left alone, children were fatherless or motherless, and parents lost sons and daughters. Even on September 11, 2001, when over 3,000 were killed as the twin towers disintegrated, tens of thousands more lost an immediate family member; they lost a mother or father, sister or brother, aunt, uncle, or grandparent. We should not forget.
Neither does God our Heavenly Father, revealed in Jesus Christ, our Lord,not forget those who are lost or those who were left behind. God cares for both and through Him, so should we. Psalms 10:12-18 addresses this. It is not only a Psalm, but a prayer of remembrance and of help for the helpless.
Arise, Lord! Lift up your hand, O God., Do not forget the helpless. Why does the wicked man revile God? Why does he say to himself, "He won't call me to account"? But you, O God, do see trouble and grief; you consider it to take it in hand. The victim commits himself to you; you are the helper of the fatherless. Break the arm of the wicked and evil man; call him to account for his wickedness that would not be found out. The Lord is King forever and ever; The nations will perish from his land. You hear, O Lord the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,defending the fatherless in the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more.
Sometime ago I read a testimony of man named Norm Burkey, which follows. "I would like to take a few minutes to share about a wonderful work the Lord has been doing in my life over the last four years, and I am really thankful for the opportunity to do it this particular weekend. Two things you need to know about me, is that on my next birthday I will be 62 years old, and I am a war orphan, is the second thing. My dad was killed in March 1945 in Italy, just a few months before the end of WWII. And even though my mom never remarried, she raised the three of us. We knew things about my dad, but we didn't know my dad. We didn't know who he was, what he was about. It just wasn't discussed and I have learned in the last four years, that that is a very common thing for whatever the reason after the war was over, people just didn't want to talk about it, and to the point where the word "dad" wasn't even in the vocabulary of my brother and sister and myself. And in fact, I guess up until four years ago, I would have argued that this wasn't even an issue in my life. I had a good life.
"But one night I was home alone, my wife Mary was at work and over dinner I was reading my issue of Newsweek and there was an article in Newsweek that week about a support group formed by two ladies, two ladies who didn't know anything about their dads either and wanted to know more about them. They have since expanded that group to several hundred people. That particular article triggered several things in me. First was really an immense sadness and it was very similar to the reaction when my sister called a few years ago and told us that our mother had died and that's the reason I said I am 62 years old. We are talking 40 to 45 years ago. And the other thing that triggered was a great desire to get to know my dad. I don't really have a good place to do this, so I will do it now and I just felt a need to do it. I would like to introduce you to my dad, Private First Class Norman Burkey of the 10th Mountain Division. Since then, I have been on a wonderful journey. I have become an active participant in a group called WON, which is the WWII orphans network. It's our support group. I have been able to talk to WON on the telephone and to have received letters from several of my dad's buddies, who were with him in his outfit and in fact were right there when he was killed. I have also been assembling materials, so that my kids and my grandchildren can also get to know him. Most important, I have been able to mourn for my dad. One thing I have learned is that children go through a mourning process, but most of us anyway we need to go through another process when we become adults and I have been able to do that in my life. The Lord has been very involved intimately in this process. I could have missed that Newsweek article, I could have missed the whole thing and one of the things we have learned as orphans, is that there was no list. The government has thousands and thousands of lists, but there was no list of the war orphans, so we have had to find each other. He was also involved in the timing, frankly up until a few years ago I was too busy with my life.
"Like many of you my wife and I started with nothing, started our married life with in fact we put everything we own in the back of a '55 Pontiac after we got married and went off to New York City to start our life. So I was busy with a career, with raising my children and the other thing is I think if I had started before that it would have really been hurtful to my mom while she was alive. Looking back on it now, I can see that she really never recovered from the death of my dad. I think it would have been too sad for her to deal with. But I see it as a great illustration of how the Lord is active in our lives from the very beginning to the very end. It doesn't matter if we are 2, 62 or 82. This particular journey didn't start until I was almost 60 years old. We are never too old or too young and I can contrast that with my work life. I am a few years from retirement and I have a great job and I work with great people, but they are not about to invest thousands of dollars in my career. In fact, my development plan for this year is one sentence. The boss kind of said, "well if you see something interesting, go ahead and do it." That's my development plan. But that is not how the Lord treats us. And another aspect is that I tend very much to the glass is half empty and so I need constant reminders that God is much more interested in healing and blessing me, than He is in punishing me. I would like to finish with just a small bit of my favorite scripture in the Bible from Psalm 139. "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." Thank you".
" Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted".
In Christ, the Prince of Peace,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WDrbbtaO0E
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