Remembering

Yesterday we went to Springfield to watch the high school baseball team of the area we now call home play for the chance to go to state. It was absolutely a perfect day in May for central Illinois. Warm and sunny, no humidity (gasp! Unheard of here!) and a breeze that kept things from getting too warm. 

Russ took a side step off the highway and we visited the National Cemetery at Camp Butler. The military straight rows are perfectly aligned as graves cover so many of the rolling green hills. Someone had painstakingly marked every single grave with a small flag at the exact same point on the stones, enhancing the uniformity that characterizes the life of those who enlist or were drafted.

Even as I type this, I recognize that there are many views of the military and the country these days. But my heart beats with the memory of a father and an uncle who proudly served this land and believed in the ideal of democracy and freedom for everyone. 

So for these two men and for countless other men and women, I fought back tears. Ideals and reality are two different things, and I understand that. But there is no perfect government, and no perfect leaders for nations here on earth. 

We stopped at one point to read a sign that explained how Camp Butler went from a Union prison camp for captured Confederate soldiers to become a national cemetery. I read quickly, but surmised that in an effort to bring healing to the nation, Confederate soldiers were buried along with Union soldiers. 

Their tombstones have a different shape to denote their affiliation, but they were given a place of burial as citizens of the United States. 

Our country was founded by men who could not agree on many things. Greed for money and power drove some, idealistic hopes for a better world drove others. Conflict and corruption abounded then and continued throughout our history. 

But this is the place where I was born and raised. This is the country and time I was given to live in. I look at what Scripture tells me is my position and it is to pray for the leaders, to live honestly for God and to serve others as I work for the peace and prosperity of the place in history I have been given. 

As we walked through the graves, we saw family members placing flowers or pausing to put a hand on the head of the stone that marks their loved one’s grave. Those concrete slabs represent members of families and citizens of communities who served our country to the best of their ability. 

We have wars because we are broken and sometimes peace is nothing but a compromise. But in the end, God will judge each man and woman for how we lived and what we valued. The world is confusing, but focusing on the sacrifice of Jesus to save us all brings everything back into perspective. 

There is no marker on His grave because there was no body to bury.

Salvation comes from one alone and true freedom is found only in Christ. Every day we remember His death and resurrection and the promise that one day, all things will be made right. Until then we live with personal integrity, holding the temporal lightly and eternal tightly.