FREEDOM IS NOT FREE!

Saturday, May 29, 2010  8AM

Freedom is not Free! My Broken Soldier Story.

Almost memorial Day! 

What is memorial Day?

In America it is the day we set aside to acknowledge and pay respect to ALL who have served in our military to PROTECT our FREEDOM!

“We do the things that need to be done, whether we like doing those things or not. We do this because freedom exists in the art of sacrifices. Freedom is not free.”

Marc La Liberte  [JAG]

*Note look up the career of Mara Lin, the architect who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C., the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, the Yale Women’s Table, and more (Google it!)

My special friends, each one touches and teaches me so much! My fellow servants, (love ya Mark, Gil, Heather, and not enough room to write all your names down!) a part of the daily reminder that “love makes the world go around.”

I dedicate to you, my perspective of FREEDOM, to the MANY who paid the price for it!

I dedicate my life, to Jesus Christ, the ultimate sacrifice, so my freedom has a purpose!

Freedom  for what? They serve and die for us to walk without fear so that we can spend the day at the mall shopping? So we can whine and complain because our steak is over cooked? Sit at Starbuck’s and chat about the poor in our neighborhood? Or worse, proclaim righteousness when filthy with sin. I say this as a sinner and broken, make no mistake about that!  This would be any easy paragraph to make endless….you get the gist!

I share my story with you because I pray that HE, the true definition of freedom, is sought after.

A church on every corner and a country based on freedom of religion and Americans who don’t even realize what a freedom that is. Think about it.

THEN (my broken soldier story) Late 1970’s , let’s see, I graduated high school in 1976 so it was May of that year I turned 18. I was living on the lower east side of Manhattan among the company of left over hippies, when I first met him. CT, had just come to New York from Vietnam, by way of Colorado, with a young woman (a stranger he had just met) who had made a “business arrangement” with him that would support both of their heroin addictions. Surviving their demons, by way of escape, was our common bond. I fell for CT the moment I laid my eyes on him. I’m leaving out HUGE chunks of the story- on purpose.  When he would fall asleep (which rarely happened) or more commonly “nod out” the TOURTURED SHREAKING OF HORROR would awake him and everyone else. Bad dream? Nightmare? NO! REAL LIFE! Never able to get any specifics because he could never talk about it, I picked up bits and pieces of the terror he had experienced in Vietnam that haunted him. Later I also learned that somewhere down south there was a wife and child he felt he couldn’t go home to….not wanting to “infect” them with his torment. Something unspeakable…I can only guess…ordered to cross into enemy village? Innocent blood spilt? Saving someone at the cost of another? Fear reaction triggered on wrong target? Babies and women in pools of blood…flashbacks...another shot of heroin to forget... For what? Our freedom? So we can shop at the mall? I don’t think so. What became of CT? I don’t know. Tens of thousands, that even made it home, I remember, came back in bits and pieces. Even if they looked whole on the outside they weren’t. That’s just one memory. One war.

Millions, since the world was created, have sacrificed their lives in the name of Freedom. What will you do with yours?

Food for thought: What is freedom worth if it is wasted!

One of the Twelve
TGIF Today God Is First Volume 1, by Os Hillman
05-29-2010

"And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again." - 2 Corinthians 5:15

It is believed that there were about 5,000 believers during the time of Christ. Among those believers, it was thought there were three types. The largest number of believers were those who came to Jesus for salvation. They served Him little beyond coming to Him to receive salvation. A much smaller number, say 500, actually followed Him and served Him. Then, there were the disciples. These were those who identified with Jesus. They lived the life that Jesus lived. Each of these ultimately died in difficult circumstances. They experienced the hardships, the miracles, and the fellowship with God in human form.

If you had to say which group best represented your life, which one would you fall into - the 5,000 who simply believed, the 500 who followed and sought to implement what they were learning from the Savior, or the 12 who identified completely with the life and mission of the Savior? Jesus has called each of us to identify with Him completely. "This is how we know we are in Him: Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did" (1 Jn. 2:5b-6).

Pray that God will allow you to walk as Jesus did. Experience His power and love in your life today so that others will see the hope that lies in you. 

Today God Is First (TGIF) devotional message, Copyright by Os Hillman, Marketplace Leaders.