Remembering::somewhere a family is missing him...

The willingness of some to give their lives so that others might live never fails to evoke in us a sense of wonder and mystery.

~ Ronald Reagan

{Photos: Ft. Denaud Cemetery and the grave of Nicholas Cutinha, who lost his life in service to our country at the age of 23 in Vietnam and was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for risking his life to save the lives of others. We never knew him, but somewhere he has family who misses him, so every Memorial Day, our family places flowers at his graveside. South Florida National Cemetery, Navy SEAL Museum

We will remember...

In the spring of 1968, when 23 year old Nicholas Cutinha was mortally wounded protecting fellow soldiers in battle, I was preparing to graduate from high school. As I anticipated my future with the hope and excitement all graduates experience, the parents of Nicholas Cutinha were grieving the tragic all-too-soon loss of their brave young son - a proud and honorable soldier in the United States Army, serving his country in the Vietnam War.

The gravesite for this young man we never knew - a Medal of Honor winner - is less than 10 minutes from our home on Pollywog Creek. His tombstone is engraved with the words, "Great Love Lives On". 

On this Memorial Day, as we have done on Memorial Days past - before baseball and barbecues, juicey slices of watermelon and tall glasses of sweet tea - we will visit Nicholas' gravesite and remember his great sacrifice with prayers and flowers and sober and somber gratitude.

{Photos - 1, 6 - Cutinha's gravesite, 2-3 - South Florida National Cemetery, 4-5 National U.S. Navy Seal Museum}

A difference engraved in stone...

There are few places more sobering than a national cemetery - where the lives of men and women who have sacrificially served our country in the military have been honored and their bodies laid to rest.

Thousands of white marble gravestones stand erect in perfectly arranged rows - only the engraved inscriptions differentiate one gravestone from another.

Isn't that much like those of us who walk the earth still - with common graces and common griefs?

The hand of God sweeps across the face of the earth and over all who inhabit it, and from a distance, our lives may look just like everyone else's.

But in Christ, they are not. We are one of God's chosen, and what was true for the nation of Israel in a time of great national grief, remains true for us today. God reaches out, opens His hands and encourages us with an inscription that we are not like everyone else...

Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands... Isaiah 49.16

{Photos: South Florida National Cemetery - where the body of our friend, "Nick" Nicholson, and the ashes of his wife, Rose, were recently buried together.}