memorial day

Memorial Day is a difficult holiday for me to understand. It is parades and picnics and parties. Yet, as we celebrate all that the men and women of the armed forces have done for us, we also mourn that they are no longer with us. That they had to die for us to have the freedoms that we enjoy, that we continue to fight for, that we often take for granted.

As I've been thinking about Memorial Day, and celebrations in general, I have begun to see that they always come with some sort of loss.  

Many students are celebrating graduation right now. Looking forward to what is next, proud in their accomplishments, joyous over meeting this goal. Yet I remember my friend Ryan having to coax me down the aisle for our high school graduation because I didn't want it to be over. I didn't want to see my friends, who I'd been in class with since I was 4 years old, head in so many different directions. I didn't know what college would be like. I didn't know what was next.

Last week we celebrated my nephew's 7th birthday. Yet even as we look forward to him entering first grade, it seems as if we also have a tinge of sadness that he is no longer a baby, a kindergartner. He has traded in his training wheels for a brand new bike.

I also completed my start-to-finish reading of the Bible last week. I didn't quite do it in 40 days -- more like 4 months -- but it is an accomplishment to be celebrated none the less. And yet those final pages left me as much conflicted as they did joyous. Even while I embraced how much I have learned, how I've enjoyed the intentional daily time with God and His Word, I don't know what to do now. I don't know what is next.

This discovery -- that celebrating involves loss or letting go or moving on -- feels like an important lesson for me to learn. And a reminder that celebrating is important, even if it hurts.

EMBRACE MEMORIAL DAY.