Looking in the Window: Memorial Day Tribute

 

IN GRATITUDE I'M HONORING THOSE WHO DIED DEFENDING OUR FREEDOM 

A visit to the Traveling Wall listing those who sacrificed their lives in Vietnam made me cherish the freedom they and all our brave soldiers died for and inspired the following poem. 

American Summer

Sunday-Go-To Meeting in soft, cotton dresses,

and open-collared shirts. Picnic on the grounds,

after church.

Wooden tables filled with ripe, red tomatoes,

golden corn, garden green beans,

and sprigs of mint for tea.

Evening walks down a dusty, country road.

Neighbors calling, "Come sit a spell; 

take off a load."

Thoughtful moments all alone, chewing on a grassy blade

sitting 'neath the tall oak's shade.

Flags flying, watermelon cooling,

folks sitting on Dresden Plate and Log Cabin quilts.

God Bless America!

________________

Did you enjoy relaxing in your house this morning? Using a computer, posting what was on your mind?

Did you enjoy going to church this past Sunday?

Did you enjoy picking out what you want in the grocery store to eat next week?

Did you enjoy shopping for a new dress, maybe even a new car or a house without anyone limiting what you chose?

Did you enjoy exercising at your gym?

Did you enjoy chatting over the fence with your neighbor?

Did you enjoy deciding what you'll do for fun and going out of the house to do it?

Are you grateful you have work with a salary to buy things you need and want?

Are you grateful you can take a vacation?

Are you grateful you can move up in your job and get a promotion?

Are you grateful you have an education? That you can choose your career?

That you or someone you know can begin life in poverty and end up wealthy?

Do you like having others see that unique quality God gave you? Recognize and respect the gift or gifts He gave you? 

The list goes on and on, and we've seen over the past year, we aren't born with these freedoms. Someone's father, brother, husband, mother, sister, son or daughter died to preserve this wonderful life we've taken for granted for so long, the one drafted in our Constitution by Godly men who yearned to live free and give each citizen the opportunity to make the most of his or her life. 

Unfortunately, we've lost some of our freedoms.

One day early in March last year I sat in a restaurant enjoying lunch with my husband. 

The next day I was locked in my house for two months. That was not a change for the betterment of mankind. It  robbed us of the lives we knew and snatched away the many gifts bestowed on us by God and our founding fathers. In spite of the masks we wore, which did a fairly successful job of taking away our identities, the drastic man-made pandemic did not make us equal. God did that when He created us all in His image. He also gave each one of us a unique gift or gifts that make each of us special, an individual like no other. No two people have the same DNA. We're all precious in our own way in God's eyes. He never asked all of us to share equally in man-made, imposed misery as we did this past year, and He doesn't want us to endure more of it. He asked that we use the talent He gave us to glorify Him, love Him and love our neighbor as ourselves.  God knows what's best for His people, not men and women who make their own rules to control people. He blessed the United States of America when he sent founding fathers with wisdom to see this and turn to Him to know how to provide for and protect the individual rights of every person. 

When we don't keep watch over our freedoms, like the shepherd who sleeps, we may awake and see wolves prowling in the darkness have taken them all.   

"If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." 2 Chronicles: 7:14