My Grandfather's Medals

Medals

My Grandfather (and namesake) was a Ranger Captain in the United States Army during World War II and growing up, I always knew that he was my dad’s ultimate hero. Whenever my dad talked about his dad, it was always with the utmost respect, awe and love. Granted, it certainly wasn’t hard to look up to my Grandfather… at 6’5” he was an imposing figure with a strong, deep voice. He fought from D-Day +4 through the Battle of the Bulge where a gunshot wound less than an inch away from his heart ended his war and almost his life… I only know three of my Grandfather’s old war stories, and while they are really awesome stories, I always wanted more. I recently found out from my dad that the reason I only know three of Granddaddy’s stories is that Dad only knows three of his stories. He says that Granddaddy never liked to talk about his war experience and that probably the only reason we know the stories we do is that Dad bugged him to find out how he got his medals.

Recently Dad tried to acquire Granddaddy’s service records only to find out that in the 70’s tons of U.S military records were burned up in a massive fire. He then sent out an inquiry to find out what some of Granddaddy’s unexplained medals stood for and a really cool thing happened… Dad opened up the mailbox one day to find that the military had actually reissued all of the medals earned by Captain James L. Younger to my dad. The crazy thing was that some of them were medals Dad had never even known about… stories Granddaddy had forgotten or neglected to tell. Dad’s mind was blown when he saw those long lost medals and learned that there was even more to his hero than he had ever known.

Hebrews 6:10 says, “God is not unjust. He will not forget your work and the love you have shown Him...” Is it not amazing to think that God will never forget the things you do for Him… the way you serve Him and the way you live for Him? Sometimes it is so hard for me to see where God is using me or how the things I am offering Him are building His kingdom. It is so easy to get discouraged and to focus on the ways in which we mess up, but God is not unjust like we are to ourselves. He sees absolutely everything you do for Him… every single movement of your heart that beats with His heart and beats for the expansion of His kingdom. He sees things we offer Him that we wouldn’t even count! He never remembers our sins and He never forgets our work for Him. Even if we forget, He never will. One day, when we see Him, we’ll realize that by His grace there’s more to us than we ever even thought!