Today is Independence Day when we in the US celebrate our freedom. At times it is a bittersweet celebration.
My imagination conjures up pictures from the past of gazebos and marching bands in the middle of towns across the land. I see families with picnics, big hats and long dresses on women and children chasing wheels down the street with sticks in their hands.
Loads of food line the tops of gaily decorated tables. In later years, as electricity caught on, carnival rides became a part of the scene, too. As the sunny, warm days waned and the golden streaks across the sky indicated the evening, everyone waited expectantly for the fireworks show. What a sparkling, colorful end to a wonderful day in a wonderful, free country.
Today, we do still head for town and the festivities provided. There are food and every other kind of vendors vying for our money. Outdoor concerts still happen and many of us head for the lake to boat, ski and swim. We continue to celebrate. It is yet a great country and the concept of self-governing—the first in history—remains a great vision dreamed by our forefathers.
I heard on the radio, in the last day or so, a program that progressed musically and verbally through the history of this nation. From the beginning: when our forefathers and foremothers came together and the Declaration of Independence started a war that separated us from Britain. At the time, Britain was the world power, yet God favored this fledgling nation. We were moved on to innovators, inventors, and slavery. The young nation nearly ended, yet, somehow, survived the Conflict Between the States. The great migration west and the settling of a wild land even with conflict of native nations; then onward to the World Wars of last century and the Greatest Generation that sacrificed so much at home as well as abroad. The losses of an unpopular war that was catastrophic to the generation involved led to a new coming of age.
Every year—we remember.
It reminds me that God commanded His people Israel to remember what He did for them every Passover. They remembered.
We are still a nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Let us continue to recall what God has done for us. How He has kept this nation through every trauma, anniversary and accomplishment. The nation that remembers God is the one that marches into the future with confidence.
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