Is It Really Memorial Day Week End?

The reason I ask this question is because as I was watching the news recently:

• I heard people making plans to travel some place.

• I heard about stores advertising their products

• I heard about family gatherings

But I did not hear anything about the brave men and women who gave their life for our freedom to do these things!

In fact, you can ask young people today WHY DO WE CELEBRATE MEMORIAL DAY?

And many of them do not know!!!

Listen to this video and it will remind us why we are here today celebrating MEMORIAL DAY!

Youtube – Ronald Reagan speech (May 25, 2014

Today we honor these brave men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom

So often we see the little value that people put on the human life in our society today

.

Illus: For example, it was broadcast on national radio that a young man was walking down the street during the wintertime wearing a brand name leather jacket. Another young man saw him wearing the jacket and he came up behind him and hit him in the head with an iron pipe and killed him, and took his jacket.

This young man considered a name brand jacket worth more than the life of this young man.

It is refreshing to come across people who recognize the value of a human life like the brave men and women who died for our freedom.

These are the true heroes not the fake heroes out in Hollywood.

These men and women knew the true value of mankind.

This reminds me of...

Illus: a boy named Ron who was a fifteen-year-old teenager, a tenth-grade student at Granger High School. It was game day, and he was the only sophomore suiting up with the varsity team.

Excitedly, he invited his mother to attend. It was her very first football game, and she promised to be there with several of her friends. The game finally ended, and she was waiting outside the locker room to drive Ron home.

• Ron said, "What did you think of the game, Mom?

• Did you see the three touchdowns passes our team made?

• And how about our tough defense?

• Did you see the fumble on the kickoff return that we recovered?" he asked.

• His mother replied, "Ron, you were magnificent during the whole game. I was so proud of you:

• I was proud of the pride you took in the way you looked. You pulled up your knee socks eleven times during the game.

• And I could tell you were perspiring in all those bulky pads because you got eight cups of water and splashed water on your face twice.

• I really like how you went out of you way to pat number nineteen, number five and number ninety on the back every time they came off the field.

• "Mom, how do you know all that? And how can you say I was magnificent? I didn’t even play in the game."

• His mother smiled and hugged him. "Ron, I don’t know anything about football. I didn’t come here to watch the game. I came here to watch you!"

Listen, this mother knew what was important! SHE KNEW THE VALUE OF PEOPLE!

We live in an age where little value is placed on PEOPLE and much value is placed on THINGS.

Let me illustrate…

Illus: A favorite actress of many in Hollywood is the Italian actress Sophia Loren. During one of the shootings of a movie, she was upset because someone stole some of her valuable jewelry.

She went to the Italian film director Vittorio De Sica, about the theft of the jewelry. He gave her some very good advice, he said, “Listen to me, Sophia. I am much older than you and if there is one great truth I have learned about life, it is this: NEVER CRY OVER ANYTHING THAT CAN’T CRY OVER YOU!” Good advice!

One of the lessons we have to learn in this life is that PEOPLE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN THINGS!

On this Memorial Day weekend, I want us to consider three things to help us learn this valuable lesson.

We need to:

I. LOOK BACK

Some tell us we should never look back, that we should always look ahead. Those who say this do not know what they are talking about.

• If we did not LOOK BACK, we could not learn from the mistakes we, and others have made.

• If we did not LOOK BACK, we could not show our gratitude to those who have made such an impact on our life.

Memorial Day is all about LOOKING BACK!

Look at the history of Memorial Day.

• Memorial Day was first observed on May 30, 1868.