Memorial Day

This is Memorial Day weekend. It is the first real weekend of the summer. Families get together for cookouts, picnics, etc. But first some facts about Memorial Day.
Memorial Day is the last Monday of May. It commemorates the men and women who have died while serving in our military. At first it was known as Decoration Day. It originated following the Civil War. It became an official holiday in 1971. It was unofficially celebrated before 1971. I remember as a child that my grandparents who clean off the cementary plots of their loved ones who had died. They would get rid of all the old artificial  flowers and wreaths that had been on the graves since the year before. They would put new wreaths on the graves.
Groups of scouts, mostly Boy Scouts, I think, go to some of the cementaries and put small flags on the graves. The Boy Scouts in our town will go through different areas of town the night before or the early morning of Memorial Day and put small flags in the yards of all the houses in that area. Here in our town we have a federal cementary. They will put flags on all the graves of these fallen soldiers. There is usually some type of commemoration at the grave of one of our former presidents, Andrew Johnson.
After we were married and lived near some of my inlaws, we all met at one of the particular cementaries where their families were buried and had a kind of family get together. We all took food and ate lunch together and then visited during the afternoon. The children had a good time playing. This cementary was located next to one of the meetinghouses of the Church of Christ in Ohio, so the children had a lot of yard and parking lot to play in. This was one time of the year when we saw some family that we did not see usually the rest of the year.
With all this national commemoration, we need to remember the One who died for our sins. Of course, we do this each first day of the week when we partake of the Lord's Supper. We need to remember His death all through the week as we go about our daily activities. We need to study His Word and apply it to our lives. We need to be ready when our time comes to go the way of all the earth.