On Remembrance Day, I want to take time to honour the Canadian soldiers who served, those who gave their lives, and the veterans who came home carrying things many of us will never fully understand. I’m also thinking about their families. Some spent months waiting for news. Some had to learn how to go on without the person they’d been waiting for.
Two of my boys are grown now, and I still like knowing they’ve made it home safely. On Remembrance Day, I think about the moms who waited for news of their sons and daughters. I wonder how long that waiting must have felt, and I think about the families who got the news they’d been afraid to hear.
I know the small relief of hearing that one of my boys is home. I can go back to whatever I was doing, and that little worry is gone. It makes me think about the ordinary things a parent might have missed while their son or daughter was away. Hearing them come in the door. Knowing they’d be there for supper. Being able to ask how their day went and hear the answer for themselves. I can understand why someone would miss those things. I can only imagine what it would be like to wait for word from someone in harm’s way.
The silence we observe gives us a moment to pay attention to people whose names we may never know. Some of the people we remember were young enough that their parents were still getting used to having grown children. They had people who knew what made them laugh, who wondered what they’d do when they came home, and who would have given a great deal to hear their voice again. When I stop and think about one family waiting for one person, the loss is harder to hurry past.
When I bring those thoughts to the Bible, I find that God gives us room to grieve. There are whole psalms written out of fear, sorrow, and questions that haven’t been answered yet. Psalm 13 begins with David asking how long he will have to wait. He brings his distress to God before he speaks of trusting him. That helps me because I sometimes feel like I should get to the hopeful part quickly, as though sitting with sorrow for too long means I’ve forgotten what I believe.
But Scripture doesn’t ask us to pretend a loss hurts less than it does. In John 11, Jesus weeps at Lazarus’s tomb. He knows he is about to raise Lazarus, and he still weeps. There is something deeply comforting about that. The One who has power over death is not indifferent to the people standing beside a grave. He sees their tears. When I think about families remembering someone they loved today, I want to remember that about him.
Psalm 34:18 speaks of the Lord’s nearness to the brokenhearted. I don’t read that as a promise that every painful memory will become easy or that grief will follow a schedule. I read it as a reason to bring the grief to him. Someone can have faith and still find this day difficult. Someone can be grateful for the years they had with a loved one and still ache over the years they didn’t get. We can sit beside that person without trying to explain their pain away.
This year I want to let that pause shape what I pray for. In 1 Timothy 2, Paul urges believers to pray for all people, including those in authority, so that we may live peaceful and quiet lives. I think of how easily I can talk about what leaders should do and how rarely I actually pray for them. I can spend quite a bit of time thinking about a decision someone made and very little time asking God to give them wisdom for the next one. That’s something I want to take seriously, especially when decisions about war and peace have consequences for people those leaders may never meet.
What challenges me about 1 Timothy 2:1–4 is how wide Paul makes the instruction. He calls believers to pray for all people, including kings and those in positions of authority. He doesn’t make my agreement with a leader the condition for my prayers. I can have serious concerns about someone’s decisions and still ask God to give them wisdom, humility, and a willingness to do what is right. In fact, those concerns should give me more reason to pray.
The passage also turns our attention to God’s desire for people to be saved and to know the truth. Then, in verses 5–6, Paul points to Jesus Christ as the one mediator between God and humanity, who gave himself as a ransom. Even in a passage about praying for rulers and a peaceful life, the gospel is close at hand. My hope cannot rest entirely on the next decision made by someone in power. I need the Saviour Paul points me toward.
I want to pray for those serving now and for the people who love them. I also want to pray for families living through war, for whom an ordinary evening at home would be an answer to prayer. When I ask God for peace, I can ask for things as specific as a safe place for a family to sleep, news for someone who’s been waiting, and help for people trying to care for the wounded. I can pray for veterans living with memories that are hard to speak about, and for the people who sit with them and listen when they’re ready.
Thinking about those who gave their lives also brings me to John 15:13, where Jesus speaks about the greatness of laying down one’s life for one’s friends. It helps me think about the cost of loving other people when that love requires something of us. I want to honour the courage of those who faced danger in the service of others, while also paying attention to what Jesus is saying to his disciples in that chapter. He commands them to love one another, and he is going toward the cross.
As I follow that thought through Scripture, Romans 5:6–8 takes me further. Christ died for us while we were still sinners. He knew the truth about the people he came to save. He knew our pride, selfishness, and rebellion, and he gave himself for us. I find that humbling. I can be moved by someone else’s sacrifice and still need to face how little I sometimes want love to cost me.
The death of Jesus accomplished what no human sacrifice could. Romans 5:1 teaches that, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. That peace reaches the deepest problem we have. Through Christ, sinners can be reconciled to the holy God we have sinned against. Remembering those who served leads me to gratitude for them, and opening my Bible leads me to worship the Saviour whose death and resurrection are my hope.
That doesn’t make the grief of this day smaller. It gives me somewhere to take it. I can thank God for the people whose service helped protect the ordinary life my family enjoys. I can also thank him for the forgiveness I could never earn and the eternal life I could never secure for myself. Both deserve more attention than I often give them.
Jesus calls his followers peacemakers in Matthew 5. When I think about what that asks of me at home, I think about how quickly I can get defensive. I can be so busy deciding what I’m going to say next that I hear only half of what the other person is saying. And sometimes I know I owe someone an apology, but I still want to explain why I was upset before I get around to saying I’m sorry. It takes humility to say plainly what I did and give the other person room to tell me how it affected them.
The prayers we pray for the world can also give us words for what we need in our own homes. When I pray for wisdom and restraint for people making decisions that affect others, I can ask God for restraint in my own words. When I pray for families waiting to hear that someone is safe, I can thank him for the ordinary evenings I get with mine. Remembrance Day gives me time to honour those who served and to bring those prayers to God.
As a mom, I find it easier to imagine the waiting than what happens after it ends. I can picture wanting to know that my child is safe. I have to stop and think longer about a family whose loved one did come home and still needed care long after everyone else had gone back to their routines. I want my prayers to make room for those families too. There may be appointments to get to, difficult nights, and ordinary responsibilities to keep up with. The need for help can go on for years, and a day of remembrance gives me a reason to think about it again.
I also think about what I’d want my boys to hear if we talked about Remembrance Day at home. I’d want them to know why we take time to remember people we’ve never met. The people who served had lives they hoped to come back to. Some did, and their lives looked different after what they’d been through. Some never had that chance. It matters to me that my boys grow up knowing whose service we’re honouring when we pause, and that they learn to care about the families who remember them every day.
Romans 12:15 calls believers to weep with those who weep. A few verses later, Paul tells us to live peaceably with everyone, so far as it depends on us, and to leave vengeance to God. I need the whole of that teaching. It calls me to compassion, asks me to examine my own actions, and reminds me that final justice belongs in God’s hands. I am not being asked to become indifferent to evil.
I don’t want to use the word peace in a way that asks someone who has been harmed to hide what happened or return to danger. Truth matters. Protection matters. Doing what is right can require a difficult conversation, help from other people, or a firm boundary. The peace Christ teaches us to pursue is consistent with loving our neighbour, including the neighbour who needs someone to take their suffering seriously.
There’s something I can do with that as I pray. I can ask God to help me notice the people who are doing the long work of caring for someone after they come home. I can ask him to give them people who will keep checking in and offering practical help after the first rush of concern has passed.
There’s a part of remembering that I want to make more room for after November 11. I can take the time to read about one person who served and learn where they came from and what their life was like. If there’s someone who wants to talk about a family member who served, I can ask about that person and give them time to tell the story. I’d like to be able to remember a name or a detail about someone’s life when the next Remembrance Day comes around.
I also want to remember that a day like this can feel different for someone whose family has lived through it. For me, it may be a pause in a fairly ordinary morning. For someone else, the same silence may bring back a voice they haven’t heard in years. I can make room for that without asking them to tell me more than they want to. I can think about them when I pray later in the day, when the ceremony is over and there’s nobody telling us it’s time to be quiet.
When I think about how much suffering there is to pray over, I’m grateful that the Bible also tells us where history is going. Isaiah 2:4 pictures a day when God judges between the nations and weapons are turned into tools for cultivating the ground. People will no longer train for war. I think about what that would mean for a mother waiting for her child. No more preparing for the possibility that someone might not come home. No more families learning to live around that empty place.
Revelation 21:1–4 gives us an even fuller picture. God will dwell with his people. He will wipe away their tears, and death, mourning, crying, and pain will be gone. Those promises belong to the future God will bring about. They don’t give me permission to overlook suffering now. They give me hope as I pray and a reason to keep caring when the needs seem far beyond what I can do.
The resurrection of Jesus is what makes that hope more than wishful thinking. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul connects the future resurrection of those who belong to Christ to Christ’s own resurrection. Death does not get the final word. I can’t promise every waiting family the news they long to hear today. I can point to the risen Saviour and trust that his promises will hold, even where I don’t have an explanation for what has happened.
So when I pause this Remembrance Day, I want to do it with my Bible open as well as my heart. I want to honour those who served, grieve with those who are hurting, and pray for people whose names I may never learn. I want to confess the sin in my own heart and thank Jesus for making peace with God possible. And I want to remember that the peace we long for will finally be complete under his reign.
Lord, thank you for those who served and for the sacrifices they and their families made. Be near to those who grieve today and to veterans who are still living with the effects of war. Give wisdom to those who make decisions that put others in harm’s way. Protect those who are serving, and give strength to the families waiting for them. Have mercy on those who are trying to keep their children safe tonight. Teach me to listen, to be quick to own what I’ve done wrong, and to make peace where you’ve placed me. Amen.
When I hear that one of my boys has made it home, I know the rest of my evening can go on. Today I want to sit for a little longer with the thought of the families who waited for that kind of news, and the people they were waiting for. I want to remember them with gratitude, pray for the people still waiting today, and carry those prayers with me after the moment of silence is over.
Lest we forget.
