I'm going to make strawberry shortcake to serve when my siblings come over for dinner (which will be my sister-in-law Jacqui's recipe for marinated chicken... best grilled chicken ever!), and we're getting a bunch of work done on house projects today. Tonight there will be fireworks! ...that's an all American day, if you ask me!
I'll be milking tonight so my brother can go see the fireworks, but I went to a show last night with a friend and my two youngest siblings!! It's amazing to hear the sound of each blast echo off the nearby hills as sparks of red, white and blue fly in the air!
And the national anthem? I learned it on the piano over the last two weeks. That song never gets old. :) My favorite verse (besides the first one of course), is the last:
"O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation.
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!"
My brother Isaac wrote a really cool status on his facebook page:
"On September Sixth,1612 my thirteenth Great Grand Father William Bradford left England. He was just one of a hundred passengers that boarded the ship Sir named the Mayflower. Cramped and over crowded they set out into the unknown in hopes of starting a new life in a land where they could govern themselves and follow God. The trip was cold, wet and almost half of the group died of sickness in the first year in America including Dorthy Bradford.
It would have been easier to have stayed in England. The chances of survival and comfort would have been better if they had stayed.
...With mutual embraces and many tears, they took their leaves of one another, which proved to be the last leave to many of them...but they knew they were Pilgrims and looked not much on those things, but lifted their eyes to heaven, their dearest country and quited their spirits...
Instead they chose to risk everything they had in search of one thing they didn't have.. Freedom.
In the decades that followed their bravery was one of the first steps in what later would built this country. I wonder at times if they knew that the steps they took to uphold principles they believed in would impact so far into the future.
It goes to show that even the smallest things we do effect those generations that follow us.The things we chose to stand for and invest ourselves in will echo into the lives of those that follow after us.
I thank the Lord for every liberty I have in this life.
and for every person who gave up so much so I could have it.
I hope you will take a moment to think about what things you do in this life and what your legacy will be. What things do you do each day that will impact your family and community. And may God Bless those that follow us."
I am so glad to live in a country where the motto is, "In God We Trust." and where we are "...one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
Happy Independence Day and God Bless America!!
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