The temperatures are warming, trees have budded, flowers are blooming, and spring is in full swing.  The end of a long year of school lies just around the corner.  Dreams of summer vacations are transitioning from possibilities on a paper into actual plans.  May is here, and summer is just around the corner!  Will you stop to smell the flowers of May before you fast-forward into June?

Our society has given the month of May two important events on the calendar for people to remember:  Mother’s Day and Memorial Day.  God has given us four special days: May 7, 14, 21 and 28, otherwise known as “the Lord’s Day” or Sunday.  What will we remember or celebrate when these days overlap?  Will we sing about mothers on May 14?  Will there be patriotic hymns on May 28?  In the majority of churches in our land the answer to that question will most certainly be an unequivocal “yes”.  The question we face is when we do blend them, can we maintain a proper perspective on the day?  Will the children who travel home to be with Mom on that special day bother to go to church with her?  Will God come up during the Mother’s Day meal or just Mom?  Things get even more complex with Memorial Day because for many people it marks the unofficial beginning of summer.  People get a three-day weekend which means they can travel, see sights, and get away.  Very often the “memorial” of our Memorial Day seems to get lost in the modern world – an amazing parallel to the Lord’s Day in our modern culture, is it not?

Celebrate motherhood, celebrate sacrifice and freedom, celebrate God.  These are all things that we should be doing not on any one day of the year but on every day of it.  Nevertheless, sometimes the calendar makes us focus on them a little bit more intently.  What will you be celebrating in May?  Take time out not simply to smell the flowers but to appreciate who made them and why their beauty is not simply an expression of love to Mom or a fallen soldier but to God.