Posted in Thought Life
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With every year that goes by, Independence Day becomes a little more dear. Probably, this is due to my realizing more and more the Great Gift that our Lord has given to this country. Added to that, the assaults that are being made on our Constitution and religious freedoms keeps the value of this Gift in the forefront of my mind.
We had a special service on Sunday, called Letters from War. Letters home from six different wars were read, along with patriotic music, etc. One of our congregation read a letter from her son who served in Iraq. I completely "lost it" a number of times. Driving home, there was an anti-war and anti-President rally in front of the County Courthouse. So many have lost their lives so that those could protest. America is unlike anywhere else in the world.
Being homeschoolers, we stress this, and I probably do it, like, every history lesson. Yes, Mother, we KNOW that the Lord is all over this country...and its founding...and today, too...
Two summers ago, I read John Adams by David McCullough. I started it because I had heard of the beautiful letters that traveled between John and Abigail. But it was 650 or 714 pages or something, and I "finished" it, just to be able to say I could.
I had heard that Adams and Jefferson died on the same day; and that it was the Jubilee of the Declaration. Now, I definitely believe that, with God, there is no coincidence. What a beautiful gift those two men received, not only to be there at the founding of our country, but to see the fruits of their labor. My favorite part is about Adams: he had been declining for several days, and he heard some "partying" going on outside. He asked the date, and when he heard it was the Fourth, he said, "It is a great and glorious day." Read the obituaries here.
My kids play the game Six Degrees of Separation. (in the '90's they called it Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.) The idea is that any two people in the world can be connected by five or less intermediary people. They are even trying to prove this: read about that here.
Abraham Lincoln was alive when Adams and Jefferson died--he was 17 years old. That's one degree of separation. Adam (the Bible Adam) was alive when Methuselah was born. Methuselah was alive when Noah was born. (Methuselah means "at his death Judgement comes.") Two degrees between Noah and Adam. John Tyler ("Tippecanoe and Tyler, too!") was born in 1790--George Washington was in office. He married twice, and his last daughter, born when he was 72, died in 1947. 1947!! After WWII. How would it be to say, "my father was born during Washington's first term?" Two degrees bring us from George Washington to the Baby Boom.
America is glorious, of course, because God is Glorious. And that is what I want to teach my children. With every generation we get farther from the beginnings, it becomes easier to forget those beginnings. But if you look at it the right way, we aren't very far from the beginnings at all. Remember, we are only one degree from the true Beginning at all times. |
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