More than 37 million Americans are traveling throughout this holiday weekend.  You can see it on our major roads,  busy theme parks, and crowded beaches.  It’s the unofficial start of summer!  

Growing up in a military family, I remember my daddy telling me the truth about Memorial Day.  It’s a day set aside to remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice while serving in our U.S. military.  I remember feeling so sad that people who did what my daddy did had lost their lives.  It was hard for my sensitive and young self to hear the truth  but I’m glad I did.

Every year on Memorial Day, I would go out to the front  of the house with daddy and watch him put the flag up, many times with tears in his eyes.  It was in that sacred and quiet moment, I knew he was thinking about his buddies that never made it home…imagining what their lives would be like if they were still here.   

 Our freedom comes with a cost.

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
John 15:13

Today as I put my flag out, I felt overwhelmed with the beautiful parallel of what God did for us.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16 

Our freedom came with a cost.

Jesus became our bridge to God when sin had separated us. The sacrifice he made on the cross gives us the hope of heaven and allows us to experience freedom. 

I believe what Christ did on the cross.  I believe in the ressurection.  I believe Christ is living in me but I struggle to live in the freedom of being His.  Because of Him there is…

Freedom from our addictions
Freedom from our fears
Freedom from insecurities 
Freedom from our past 

The price has been paid.  The sacrifice made.  

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
Galatians 5:1

On this Memorial Day, as I honor the many U.S. military who have sacrificed for the freedoms we have in our country, I thank God for the freedoms He has given us. May we rest and live freely in that freedom today.

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