I Walk Among Heroes

Each morning we rise to greet a world of people all too like ourselves: mortally flawed, intrinsically selfish, and tenaciously bitter.  But those daily acts of blatant selfishness recede as all the smoke and flames once did around the World Trade Center and become just a black backdrop for the noblest acts of heroism Americans have ever seen. 

And lest you doubt those heroes exist, I tell you that I know without a doubt that I walk among heroes every day of my life, for I have seen them:

I have seen my great-aunt sitting tall and regal while a military officer presented our flag to her in honor of her late husband's service to his country as a young man.

I have seen my little brother have the forethought to gather the shells from the twenty-one gun salute at the funeral.  Though they were his prized treasures, he lovingly held them out in his palm to give to each family member for remembrance.

I have seen the woman who brought my grandparents to the Lord sparking a generational heritage she could not have known, and in her eighties make sharing the Gospel to telemarketers one of her life callings.

I have seen my mother endure more pain in the past few years than I ever knew was possible and yet still smile sunnily and make the coffee each morning and dinner at night and give a thousand hours of serving in between. 

I have seen my friend choose to honor her Lord and her parents rather than give into deep temptation. 

I have seen my father hold his silence in an argument he could easily win, stalwartly keeping his temper. 

I have seen the divorced man who lovingly and faithfully woos his unbelieving and hard-hearted wife. 

I  have seen the couple who adopted needy children, some of whom may otherwise have been another abortion statistic, and have spent their retirement years in selfless sacrifice, throwing themselves into raising this second family.

I have seen a dear friend, now in her sixties, who chose a personal relationship with the Lord despite the entreaties and disapproval of her mother. 

I have seen the friend who knows she may be going blind and yet carries a joyous smile and can't stop talking about how good the Lord is, and it is then that I realize that all these people, they are heroes. 

I walk among them every day. Though to you they are strangers in line at the grocery store, to me they are the most noble people in the world, people who live lives of quiet heroism against the backdrop of rampant selfishness.  No one writes magazine articles about them, and no movie rights to their stories have been purchased, but they don't care.  What they do isn't for the world to see but for the world to be changed. 

Photo Credit: h.koppdelaney