Honor to Whom Honor is Due

In the United States, November is a month to be thankful, which culminates in Thanksgiving Day, a national holiday set aside for the giving of thanks. However, even though I have lived in America my entire life, and celebrated Thanksgiving as enthusiastically as anyone else, this year, for the first time, thankfulness has been on my mind since the first day of November.

Today is Veteran’s Day, another holiday for giving thanks, not for provision of food or shelter, but for safety. We so easily take our safety for granted when our nation is at peace, or at least, not engaged in warfare on our home shores. But a nation in peacetime does not have any less cause to be grateful to those who protect it than a nation at war. In fact, we might have even more cause to be grateful, because peace and safety are never free, and the defense of one’s homeland is a task never finished.

Even now, as you read this, there are brave men and women fighting somewhere, unknown, unsung, except perhaps by their family and friends, faithfully defending and protecting you.

There are those living with the physical or mental consequences of their willing sacrifice, in pain or anguish each day simply because they believed your safety was worth fighting for. There are those who have died in service of our country, paying the price of your safety with their own lives.

That is why Veteran’s Day is an important holiday, and why you and I should make the effort to find some veterans or active members of the armed forces to whom we can express our gratitude today for the safety they have helped to purchase on our behalf.

“Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour” (Romans 13:7)