Meditation - Sacrifice

Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.  If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.

At night I stroke the cheeks of my young children, Matthew, Elizabeth, Sophia.  I caress their small hands and pray that God protect them.  Maybe, Matthew especially.  His daddy was a sailor in a time, like now, when we had enemies.  I know that Matthew will feel a sense of obligation also to serve.  I pray that if he chooses that road that God will preserve him and will care for that small boy's gentle hands. Those hands that will someday grow into the hands of a man.

On January 11, 2007, the President of the United States awarded the Medal of Honor, our nation's highest military award, to Marine Corporal Jason Dunham.  It was awarded posthumously.   Corporal Dunham had thrown himself on a grenade to save the lives of his fellow marines.

How easy it is to let that story pass our consciousness.  The story of a soldier throwing himself on a grenade is a story that we have heard before.  It is almost cliché.

In 2004, Corporal Dunham's enlistment had ended.  He was authorized to return home and even leave the military.  But 22 year old Jason Dunham voluntarily extended his enlistment with the US Marines.   He volunteered to spend more time in Iraq.  He could not bring himself to leave his fellow Marines behind while they remained in harm's way.

On April 14, 2004, Jason Dunham was leading a patrol that stopped a convey of cars that was leaving the scene of an ambush of US Marines.  A black clad figure leapt out of one of the cars and attacked the patrol.  Corporal Dunham engaged the figure in hand to hand combat.  The black clad figure dropped a grenade amongst the Marines.

Instantly, Jason Dunham, a young man from Scio, New York (population 1,876), threw himself on the grenade. 

Even though Corporal Dunham's reaction was instant, the decision was not.  No. It is not in our nature to throw ourselves on a grenade.  Our every physical instinct is to flee danger.  To throw yourself on a grenade requires deliberate foresight. There is no time to consider the issue when the grenade is thrown.  This is a rule broadly applicable in life.  If you wait to make decision in the moment of adversity, you will follow instinct and fail yourself.

Long before that grenade was thrown, Jason Dunham had resolved himself that if a sacrifice was needed, that he would lay his life down for his friends.  And when the time came, Jason shouted to his friends, removed his helmet, covered helmet and grenade with his body, and Jason Dunham died.   

How easy it is to take for granted the price that has been paid for us. 

Just over 2,000 years ago a man who was also in the nature of God prayed in a garden.  He sweated droplets of blood, resolving himself to save his beloved through his agony and death, and then he was taken away and crucified.  He died upon a cross.

In that act, the messiah saved us, you, me, and our children.  God almighty sent his son to die for my son.  A sacrifice was made that I can not grasp.

I stroke the small hands of my children at night and I pray with them.  I pray in hope and I pray in gratitude for the sacrifice that was made.

Now I lay me down to sleep,  I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

Be Blessed.