In memory of the fallen...

Today is a day of Remembrance in our home.

November 7th, 2003 was the last sunrise that those brave men, Kyran, Ben, Paul and Scott, who were aboard the Lancer 431 would ever see.

Today, even more so than any other day of the year, I watch Bradley's head hang low and tears fill his eyes as he reflects on the lives of those 4. Men who he lived with, laughed with, cried with, and fought with to keep us free.

He got to know those men he worked along side in a way that the majority of our working population will never experience. They were brothers. Not of the same blood. Not even of the same faith. But brothers in a way that only they would ever understand.

I can't help but feel guilty that I am eternally grateful he was held back that day. He should have been there, on that flight, with them. But instead he was sitting in that classroom unaware that the news he would receive would change him forevermore. This news that his best friend, along with the others, were drawn from the sky by a rocket propelled grenade was the farthest from his mind but cut him straight through the heart when it came.

We pray for those families that I've never met but he has heard all about. I can't picture the faces I've never seen but I can see their hearts as I look to the heart of our Father who has created them in His image. He feels all emotion and has given us the ability to do the same. My heart grieves for them knowing that they too grieve in the memory of today.

I pray for him as he speaks about his best friend Scott as if it happened yesterday. This man who acts so tough while he talks the talk is torn inside today. All I can do is hold him, wipe tears as they shed. I feel helpless because nothing I can say or do will bring them back or change what is inevitable for this sin cursed world.

It's not how God the Father desired this world to be: famine, brokenness and war. I am so proud to know that it will not last forever. That the eternal battle that rages on has already been won by the blood of Christ Jesus. Until His return, we give thanks to those who fight and shed their blood to keep our earthly body's safe from harms way.

These men who gave their life and those men and women who continue to place more value on our freedom than their own are just a glimpse of the goodness that God intended for us in humanity.

As we spend time in remembrance this week, I pray that our hearts would be mindful of these fallen soldiers, their families and those who survived physically but will never be free from the experiences they endured.
 
Bradley, I am so proud of you! To all of my other family and friends who have served or are serving still, we thank you and continue to pray for you!

Numbers 6:24-26

The Lord bless you, and keep you;

The Lord make His face shine on you,
And be gracious to you;

The Lord lift up His countenance on you,
And give you peace.’

Prayer Time Controversy in Toronto...

Recently as I've been catching up on some online news articles, my attention was captured by a poll being taken in Toronto regarding the acceptance of Islamic prayer time in the public school system.

I do not consider myself to be racist or prejudice in any way shape or form in spite of the things I am about to say. I have people in my life of all ethnicity's, faiths, and sexual orientation. I have no problem with allowing them to share in my life their belief's or reasoning's for choices they make as long as they have the same respect toward me sharing mine.

More often than not disagreeing occurs and that is just fine. Even within the community of same faith believers I find rarely do we agree 100% on our theological standpoints but we can choose to live in harmony - discerning when to debate and when to let it go and love one another where we are each at.

I do have an issue with our once upon a time God-fearing government toying with the idea of allowing for regulated prayer times for those of the Islamic faith in the public schools that all of our tax dollars support when they would not even allow me to say the name of God as a Christian in my own high school growing up.

In the past two decades we have stripped the public school system of all things related to the God of the Christian faith - the belief's in which our country was first founded. And now, because of the political pull that is created from personal rights and because we have to be fair to all those we allow to cross our boarders, we will go out of our way to create space and time for young Muslims to live out their faith within the premises of the public school.

Maybe it's just me, but I struggle a great deal with this issue.

Not because I think their faith choices should be squelched but because ours were and still are.

I struggle with even teasing this movement because not only has Christianity been forced out of the school systems here in Canada, we go out of our way to allow other faiths to consume where we shouldn't have cut in the first place.

Do not take offence to my next statement I simply am speaking the hard reality... I struggle with this because if I were to move to any Islam faith country and walked into their school with my children in tow to request - even in the most humble way - that I would like a place for them to have designated time during the school day for their Christian prayers... Do you know what would happen? We would be disposed of.

That's the cold hard truth.

If I want my children to have a Christ centered faith even here in our own country then I will either have to pay thousands of dollars each year to send them to private Christian school or take on the responsibility of teaching them from home.

Why should it be any different for those of any other faith in this country?

If the decision is made in Toronto, to go out of the way to provide the opportunity for those to express outwardly the demands of Islamic prayer then the same respect ought to be brought back into place for those of every other faith represented by our melting pot of a country.


http://www.citytv.com/toronto/citynews/news/local/article/144877--groups-protest-muslim-prayers-at-toronto-public-school