Just Keep Breathing

"Just keep breathing because we in this nation, in every nation, need you to remind us of the price of conflict."

KING DAVID was seventy when he died. He’d reigned as king for forty years and fought many, many battles. He was a veteran of war, which took its toll on him physically. He could no longer get warm in the year before he passed. He’d sought the Lord to built Him a temple but been told it would not be built by him because he was a man of war. Instead, his son, Solomon, would build it during years of peace.

There are wars and rumors of wars all around us. We’ve grown used to it, and now, we’re quick to respond to the smallest things with threats. Peace seems boring. Weak. Nothing could be further from the truth. It takes greater endurance to remain peaceful in the face of possible conflict that it ever will to give into the flesh and the unsaved mind. It’s easy to react. It’s difficult not to. Then, to be sincere in it, to desire peace and be willing to give something up to sustain it, that’s far more powerful.

Not give up as in give in. No, a man of peace holds fast, confidently in what keeps peace. But he also gives of his time and generosity. However, not of his integrity.

Today is a day of integrity. These men and women we honor did something that was required of them. Some survived. Others didn’t. But regardless of their politics or personal beliefs, they faced the flames during times of conflict. There is a man on YouTube who posts regularly about his care of his ninety-two-year-old father, who suffers from dementia. One day, his dad asked him if he had a “five-year plan.” The son, as he always does, engaged his father in conversation about the topic and ended by saying, “Dad, here’s your five-year plan. Just keep breathing.”

Some of our veterans are not breathing, and we honor them as well. But for those who are, Just keep breathing because we in this nation, in every nation, need you to remind us of the price of conflict. That it isn’t battle configurations or machinery or status figures. It is people against people trying to solve an argument with lives. Brothers, fathers, sons, daughters, moms, grandparents. Thank you for giving of yourself. Thank you for going and standing and doing what you were trained to do.

May the God of peace give you peace and abundance in your years, fruitfulness, wisdom. Friendships. Joy. And for every step you made on some battlefield, there be ten times that many here at home, your grass green, the skies blue, your loved ones all around you.

Image at Pixabay.


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com