Today is Remembrance Sunday, and I woke up this morning with a few words of rhyme in my mind, so have put these on paper.  It’s not terribly sophisitcated, but I think sums up how I feel.

Sacrifice

 

Called to raise a sword,

To serve with all his might

To defend his home, and family;

To protect their lands and rights

 

Defending freedoms to work and play,

To worship as they choose

He, and countless others,

Went forth – their lives to lose

 

Heroes we call them, and rightly so,

For gallantly they fought

To children in schools to this day,

Their sacrifice is taught

 

But what of their families – their loved ones –

Who lost a son that day;

Brother, husband, or father;

With whom children could now not play

 

They too had wounds from the war;

Their battle scars unseen

When remembering their heroes they now would think;

“If only”, “What might have been?”

 

They too had given sacrifice

For family they had lost;

Their cries piercing the heavens;

Their tears the terrible cost

 

Would there be a day when once again

Their loved ones they would see?

Husband and wife, father and child,

Reunited would they be?

 

Would wounds from swords or guns

Or emotional scars untold,

Remain forever, or would relief

Come to each and every soul?

 

Another sacrifice was made

So many years ago,

Given by the Son of God

That cost we cannot know

 

On a hillside garden it began,

With blood from every pore.

His suffering we cannot imagine

But the pain He did endure.

 

Then to another hillside

Upon a cross He hung,

And suffered yet again until

His Father’s work was done

 

The anguish borne by His mother

And others who loved Him,

Turned all their world to darkness;

Their grief had made life dim

 

But three days more, on Easter morn

The tomb’s stone rolled away,

A resurrected Christ appeared

Bringing light to a brand new day

 

For never more would grief prevail

Nor death her captives hold.

The greatest sacrifice of all

Would now fore’er be told.

 

Our hero soldier whose life was lost,

Child and widow left alone,

Can live with them again one day

Christ’s mission has atoned.

 

Our mortal spheres, though filled with grief

Will not stay this way,

For He who suffered for all mankind

Will wipe our tears away.