November 11th is US holiday dedicated to honoring military veterans and celebrating their service. And I believe its also a day we should honor and celebrate the families of the veterans who are as much the heroes as those who serve. I am so grateful to veterans and their families for affording me a great nation of freedom to live in.  THANK YOU for your service!

I wrote something a few years ago about Veterans and our country that I think bears repeating again today given the craziness that seems to be going on in our world:

I often question if we, as citizens of this great nation, do our part to be deserving of the sacrifice of our Veterans. I can’t imagine that these brave soldiers risked their lives for the freedom of Americans so that Americans could behave by turning on one another and viciously tearing each other down. These Veterans risked their lives so that the citizens of our Country could live together in peace.

“Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.” – Ronald Reagan

If we want to honor our Veteran’s we should do so by treating each other with respect and kindness. We should honor them by handling our conflicts by peaceful means. We should honor them by proving that we are indeed ONE NATION, UNDER GOD, that is GRATEFUL to be living in this great country, and that is willing to kneel in prayer to ask God to guide our leaders and to soften the hearts of our citizens so that we may each live worthy of the sacrifices that have been made on our behalves.

“America needs God more than God needs America. If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a Nation gone under…We can’t have it both ways. We can’t expect God to protect us in a crisis and just leave Him over there on the shelf in our day-to-day living. I wonder if sometimes He isn’t waiting for us to wake up, He isn’t maybe running out of patience.” – Ronald Reagan

I thank God for this Nation and I thank our Veterans for their incredible sacrifice (and their families!). And I pray that the citizens of this country will unite in gratitude for our freedom and move forward with the intention of working together to make both God and our Veterans proud.

~Amy Rees Anderson