In honor of Veterans Day, I dedicate this blog to those who give us the meaning behind this day.

Thank you for serving us so faithfully.

This one is for you.

A week ago on Halloween, there were children who dressed up as superheroes.
But Veterans day reminds us that our country is populated by some real ones.

Superheroes we rarely notice or see.

I was in Jacksonville, North Carolina two weeks ago speaking at a women’s conference, and it’s the home of Camp Lejeune– a military base where Marines are trained and deployed, so you and I have protection we can’t see, against enemies we don’t know.

They are humble heroes– addressing you as “Ma’am,” saluting their superior officers, and reflecting a respectful attitude that almost seems foreign in the culture in which we live. They are heroes who faithfully serve their time, and often come back with injuries (visible and invisible) that turn them into something different than they were when they left.

And sometimes they never come back at all.

Their spouses are heroes by default—for in their absence, these women and men hold their family’s faith, manage their home, and single parent their kids– while their beloved Marine or soldier is gone for months at a time.
Then they readjust and get ready to do everything over again when they come back.

Until I became close friends with a wife of a Marine, I was largely unaware of this military population.
I knew they existed of course. I saw them celebrated in the news.
But I never thought they really had anything to do with my life.

Little did I know they had everything to do with my life.

Without these heroes, our country would be an unprotected target for dangers we don’t know or see. With them, we’ve been given an unearned freedom we don’t even realize we have.

And rarely do we see the breadth of sacrifices they quietly make on our behalf .

So Halloween shaped up to be a bit different for me this year.
As I looked at the superheroes who strolled the streets for candy, I was mindful of the ones who live it every day of their lives.

It was an honor to witness what you do.
You and your families live this quote in ways the rest of us will never know.

Thank you.

For the book where this quote is from, follow this link: http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Faith-Dark-Story-Takes/dp/0310337119/ref=la_B00IKAGCDG_1