thanks

i had the priveledge of being asked to do the invocation (or opening prayer) at the veterans's day festivities in town today. when i arrived at the place where i thought i we were all supposed to gather i was told that the parade was first and then the ceremony i was involved in would take place.

it wasn't quite what i had been told, so i took off, in my high heels, down the main street to find where the parade was going to begin. once i found them i asked a police officer where i should go and he suggested i join the parade. i told him i felt funny doing that since i had never served in the armed forces, but he encouraged me to join the other dignitaries so i did.

so i wound up marching with the veterans and the politicans who had shown up for the day. (in my high heels).

this was the prayer i offered:

Let us pray,

O God, today we give you thanks for brave men and women throughout the history of our country.

We give you thanks for those who yearned for the ideal of liberty and independence.

We give you thanks for those who struggled to keep a divided country united.

We give you thanks for those who stood against the desires of madmen and their bloody solutions.

We give you thanks for those who answered the call to serve on foreign soil in nations divided by civil war.

We give you thanks for those who came home unappreciated and scorned.

We give you thanks for those who were captured by our enemies and those who were lost and remain missing, but not forgotten.

We give you thanks for those who give aid to our allies, for those who fight to protect not just Americans but people of all nations, for those who wear a uniform many of us can not.

We give you thanks for those who have paid the ultimate sacrifices so that the ideals of liberty, independence, freedom, and justice are not just ideals we hope for, but realities we live.

We give you thanks, O God, for our veterans who have given of themselves in times of peace and in times of conflict.

We lift them up to you and ask for your blessing on them and on this day of remembrance.

And we pray for a world of such peace that their work and courage will never have been in vain.

Amen.

and God's peace y'all