"A First Impression of the Cost of Fredom"

Happy Memorial day!

I am so thankful for the freedoms that I have been blessed with here in America, and for those who were willing to defend those freedoms with their lives. 

Our Pastor mentioned yesterday morning about the courage that God gave (and does give) our soldiers. That courage is such an amazing and beautiful thing to me. Our nation has been kept safe and free because God protected us and blessed us with soldiers who were willing to give their all.

I remember a day when I began to realize how many pay that price.

I was about five years old and my family and I were visiting the USS Arizona memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Walking onto the memorial, my parents told me we had to be very quiet and I wondered why. The memorial was peaceful and somehow sad at the same time, almost as if people were afraid to disturb something. Staring over the edge I could see the USS Arizona underneath the water. It was so fascinating and yet even that sight made me feel solemn.

There was a  huge wall there, with hundreds of names on it. I remember asking ( very quietly) what the names were all there for. I was told they were the names of the soldiers that died on the USS Arizona. I felt overwhelmed  and looked at that wall again trying to grasp that concept. ALL of those people... on the ship just beneath me.

I don't think my five year old brain fully made the connection of what exactly they died for, but it made a huge impression on me of what the cost of a battle could be. 

And our soldiers have gone into battle, knowing what price they may have to pay... and they went anyway. 

I am so very thankful.