Holidays are times for memories. In my case the 4^th of July brings European memories to mind. My enormous appreciation for American freedoms grew through a summer experience on the other side of the Atlantic.

One summer when we lived in France we decided to drive to England for our family vacation.  We cut the trip in half by spending the night at a camp ground in the north of France. While we were there we visited a World War II cemetery to help our kids understand history. I found the endless rows of small white crosses unforgettable.

It wasn’t even an American graveyard that we visited.  The one we found as we were making our way toward the ferry was a Canadian memorial.  As we walked the rows and rows of white crosses, I reviewed some of the facts about the war with the kids. 

I’d felt I understood the enormity of the cost of freedom in Europe. But pictures, movies and books can’t declare liberty’s price in the same way a memorial ground does. The white crosses stretched out as far as we could see, and kept going and going. They seemed to spread endlessly in every direction.

As my kids walked in front of me, I began to read the names and to calculate the ages of the people represented by the crosses. Most of the white crosses were for young people. Many of the soldiers had been the same age as my oldest son, who was walking just ahead of me. 

I couldn’t keep myself from crying.  I’ve always been thankful for my freedom, but this was deeper.  This was a waking awareness that people whose families I’ll never know, people who weren’t even thinking of me benefiting from their sacrifice, people who were not even from my country, people who wouldn’t necessarily have agreed with my take on life, had died, and had made my world a better, freer place through their sacrifice.

A similar sober-and-enormously-grateful feeling overtook me on another summer visit, this one to Reformation Wall in Geneva, Switzerland.  There are four central statues on that large stone memorial: Guillaume Farel, a Frenchman who was the first to preach the Reformation in Geneva, John Calvin, leader of the Reformation movement and spiritual father of Geneva, Theodore Beza, Calvin's successor, and John Knox, a Scottish preacher and a friend of Calvin. Behind the statues runs the motto of the Reformation and of Geneva, Post Tenebras Lux, “After Darkness, Light”.

The four Genevan reformers are flanked by smaller statues. These are other major spiritual protestors and reformers.  There are also inscriptions connected with the Reformation carved in the wall. One scene shows Roger Williams and the Pilgrim Fathers praying on the deck of the Mayflower; another features the 1689 presentation of the Bill of Rights to the Protestant King William of Orange by the Houses of Parliament.  Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli anchor opposite sides of the wall.

So many people have sacrificed so many things to make my life what it is today.  The white crosses are part of my political heritage. Reformation Wall is part of my spiritual heritage. 

Christ’s painful death on the cross is harder to look at than the white crosses or Reformation Wall.  Christ knew he was dying for me.  God’s Son willingly died for me because I cannot free myself from sin. His agony on the cross bought me life, paid my freedom. 

Other’s sacrifices have given me the options I enjoy today. It’s awful to think about, but the truth is that their deaths make my life good. I can honor the soldiers and the thinkers who have changed my life by being thankful for their gift and by enjoying and exercising my expensive freedoms.  I honor God by admitting I need his sacrifice, by accepting the enormously costly gift of salvation he provided through his Son’s death, and by enjoying the gift his life provides in mine – LIFE, holy and better and free.

This year, another place on the globe draws my July 4^th thoughts. As well as seeing the overwhelming volume of past sacrifice, I’m taken aback by the heart cost to current military personnel. I’m learning that all sacrifices are really personal to someone -- my daughter’s husband, my granddaughter’s dad, is currently serving in the US Army in Afghanistan. My daughter is serving in North Carolina. I have nephews in the military who are serving in different places around the world. This 4^th of July I send special thoughts to my family members “on duty” for us all.