From the Home Place

May 25, 2026

Good morning to each of you dear readers. It looks like we should have a rather pleasant day here in Lusk and hopefully where you live as well. Today is Memorial Day – meaning that working folks get another day off. Children are either enjoying their first week without school or others are looking forward to their school year coming to an end.

Officially, Memorial Day is “a solemn United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May. It is dedicated to mourning and honoring the military personnel who died while serving in the Unites States Armed Forces.” Historically, the holiday was originally known as “Decoration Day,” stemming from early traditions where citizens decorated the graves of fallen Civil War soldiers with flowers and wreaths. It was officially established on May 30, 1868, by General John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic.

Like most American holidays, that which started to honor one group, has been expanded to a day for remembering all who have passed from this life, to now another day for parties and celebrating not having to go to work or school. Leave it to we Americans to turn that which was started as a “solemn” time of remembering sacrifices made for freedom into a day of parties for pleasure!

May I encourage each of us to take time to walk through the local cemetery, to attend your local Memorial Day Ceremony, to bow your head before the God of creation and to take time to thank Jesus for true freedom. Perhaps we should take time to praise God for allowing us to live in a nation where we are free to attend church, to go to work, to go to school and to enjoy other freedoms that we often take for granted. Once again, we Americans seem to have taken that which thousands have sacrificed their lives for and turned it into what we today call a right!

How did we get to be nation where so many feel that freedom to live as they wish to live is an inherent right? The personal freedoms you enjoy today were bought with someone’s blood; the spiritual freedom you enjoy today was bought with the blood of Jesus Christ. Once again, we need to be reminded that freedom is never free – it cost someone greatly!

It seems to me that the very least we can do is to take time away from our parties to honor those who sacrificed their life for our freedom. And may I suggest that each of us spend some time in prayer, thanking God for sending His Son to die on a cross, to purchase humanity from eternal damnation. Because of the sacrifice of a soldier, and the sacrifice of the Savior, we are truly free today; perhaps we should all remember that we live as free people because of someone’s shed blood, and not people who are owed the privilege of living free. Nationally and spiritually, we each live a blood bought freedom.

Expressing deep gratitude to fallen military personal, and to Jesus Christ, with you, Neal