This month our country commemorates the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One. I wasn鈥檛 around for that but around the world, millions of people who hoped and longed for a war-free world, celebrated. Sadly, it was not to be and just a few years later our soldiers found themselves involved in yet more hostilities.
I still have some vague memories of the closing days of that Second World War. I was just two years old then but over the ensuing months and years I would hear conversation centring around rations, sacrifices and soldiers liberating Holland. It was a somber time, a mix of relief, celebration and irreplaceable losses. I have chosen to keep those and subsequent memories as honest and clear as possible for one simple reason: I am thankful beyond description to those men and women who gave their all, in order to provide me and my family with the gift of freedom. Why would one forget that?
In an almost ironic twist of events, I married into a family that not only partially survived, but lived in the middle of and through the war. I鈥檝e told this story often but I simply can鈥檛 and don鈥檛 want to forget. After losing their way of living and too many of their family members they remain incredibly loyal to each other and equally grateful to the congregation of a church in Winnipeg who enabled them to immigrate and stay together as orphaned siblings. How can one ever forget that!
And yet, we humans do forget. Though it鈥檚 almost old news now, it was just several weeks ago that our hearts were saddened by the Philadelphia massacre of worshipping Jews.
鈥淒o not oppress foreigners; you know what it鈥檚 like to be a foreigner; remember your own experience 鈥�.鈥� Exodus 23:9
God, help us never forget!
听
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