Friday’s Fave Five

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Susanne at Living to Tell the Story hosts Friday’s Fave Five so we can share our favorite things from the last week. This has been a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God gives. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

1. I mentioned this earlier this week, but I really enjoyed that the Fourth of July was on a Sunday this year. Grandma’s birthday was Friday, we went to one fireworks event Saturday night, our church had a cookout Sunday, and we shot off personal fireworks at my son and daughter-in-law’s house Sunday night. Then my husband had Monday off for the holiday since it fell on a day he already had off. So it was a festive weekend, but not too rushed or crowded.

I love these little tanks and trucks.

2. This is one of the cutest, sweetest things I have ever seen:

3. Dinner at Fuddruckers. I think I have mentioned them before. But Tuesday night I just had a craving for BEEF! And that seemed to fit the bill. Plus I love their fudge brownies. It takes me a couple of days to finish one off.

4. AC and ceiling fans. I’ve used both this week, and I am so glad to have them. I hate to think what the electric bill will be this month, though.

5. These goodies from Karla Dornacher:

She mentioned here that she had found a box of old prints that she was putting on her Etsy shop and told the story behind the Psalm 119:105 print. I loved the print itself, but I really enjoyed reading about all that I would likely have never gotten out of it on my own. I ordered that one as well as the wisdom print, and Karla tucked in a few extra little goodies as well.

Hope you have a great weekend!

Flashback Friday: Medical Memories

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Mocha With Linda hosts a weekly meme called Flashback Friday. She’ll post a question every Thursday, and then Friday we can link our answers up on her site.

The question for this week is:

Were you prone to accidents and injuries when you were growing up? Did you ever break a bone? Knock out any teeth? Get stitches? Have you ever ridden in the back of an ambulance? Did you ever have surgery or spend any time in a hospital? How did your folks treat injuries and illnesses? With lots of TLC or by telling you to get a stiff upper lip? Was there a particular home remedy that your mom (or dad or whoever!) used or any “traditions” involving injuries or illnesses? What’s the worst injury (or illness) you had when you were growing up?

Thankfully I was fairly healthy as a child. I had the usual non-major illnesses and injuries: chicken pox, strep throat, skinned knees, etc., but thankfully no major illnesses or accidents, no broken bones. I had my tonsils removed when I was about six, but that was fairly common then. That was my only childhood hospitalization. I remember my beloved doctor carrying me to the operating room, being asleep but then waking up IN the operating room, but thankfully before they started doing anything, feeling uncomfortable afterward but enjoying staying in bed, reading comic books, and eating jello and ice cream.

I did have a few relatively minor injuries along the way. In first or second grade, a group of us were throwing rocks at each other — not maliciously — it was all in fun. I don’t know why we thought that would be fun. But I got hit in the head and started bleeding profusely. I do remember my mom coming and I remember going to the doctor — I don’t remember an ambulance or stitches. When I got back to school the teacher made us all write 100 times or so, “I will not throw rocks,” and I was indignant that I, as the injured party, had to suffer punishment, too. 🙂

I don’t remember how old I was when my mom asked me to help take the side down on her friend’s playpen, and somehow my finger got stuck and cut into just below the nail. It must have gotten infected, because some time later we had to go to the doctor about it. While he was working on my finger, removing the nail, his nurse was between me and my hand  (which was stretched out on a board) asking me about my birthday. I was so aggravated with her! Who wants to talk about their birthday at a time like that! I realized later she was just trying to distract me from what the doctor was doing. Then another time, my brother dropped his toy gun on my foot — toy guns were made of heavy metal, not the lightweight stuff they use today — and I ended up having to get a toenail removed. Not fun.

Vicks VapoRub on forehead, cheeks, and chest was the remedy for a really bad cold. We lived in houses that had boxy gas stoves in the living room as the main source of heat, and my parents would put a coffee can full of water and a dollop of Vicks in it on the stove as kind of a room humidifier. Iodine was put on cuts, causing a burning sensation and leaving a red stain for a while. Calomine lotion was used for anything itchy, from bug bites to chicken pox, leaving us with pink spots from the medicine. The only really weird home remedy I remember was that if we had an earache, my dad would blow cigar smoke in our ears and then stuff them with cotton. I have no idea why — it sounds so bizarre. Maybe the warmth was supposed to be soothing? As an adult I was concerned that the smoke did long term damage and I was going to get cancer in my ears or head, but figured since I couldn’t do anything about it after the fact, I wouldn’t worry about until I needed to.

We never went for regular dentist checkups — my parents had neither the money for that nor the dental insurance. When I was in junior high, I had two abscessed teeth, on one either side of my head, and the dentist pulled one of them one week and the other one the next week. He said that when my wisdom teeth came in, the other teeth would move down into the empty space — and they did. That was my only dental experience until after I was married — and, of course, there was a LOT of dental work to be done then! I only had to have my bottom two wisdom teeth taken out when I was in my 30s. The oral surgeon keopt saying, “This is so much easier to do when you’re 16,” and I kept thinking, “Maybe, but I can’t help that now!”

Because my parents had several children and not much money, we only went to the doctor if something was really bad or had lasted a long time. Probably because of that, and the fact that sometimes waiting made the situation worse, I was prone to go to the doctor myself and take the kids to the doctor a little too often for several years, but I think I have evened out now.

Book Review: God Wears His Own Watch

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When my ever-practical husband first saw the title of God Wears His Own Watch by Reid Lehman, he commented, “God doesn’t wear a watch.” True, but Mr, Lehman explains that what he means is that God operates on His own time table, not ours. Sometimes He seems to act in ways that seem late, even past our human deadlines, but He never fails.

At 144 pages, this book is a brief but compelling history of Miracle Hill Ministries and how God has provided for it and worked in the lives of both the workers and the clients.

If you’ve ever tried to work with homeless or addicted, you know it can be discouraging and frustrating, yet God does still patiently change lives. Sanctification is a long process, and when we struggle with our own besetting sins we shouldn’t be surprised that others with perhaps more visible sins do as well. It was a thrill to read of those whose lives the Lord saved and changed, and it encouraged hope for some of my own lost loved ones. One particular lady in one pastor’s neighborhood was in “a drunken haze” for fifteen years before she finally responded to his invitation to trust Christ. How few people are that patient and persistent in working with people! This lady was one of the very few who never relapsed once she was saved and later on became a faithful worker at Miracle Hill. Her own children had been taken from her by DSS, but she became a baby-sitter to Mr. Lehman’s children, which helped heal that wound in her heart, and she was later able to reestablish a relationship with her own children. Sometimes we can harshly judge that some of the painful consequences people encounter are “only what they deserve,” forgetting the depth of pain of those consequences and the mercy we have received in not getting everything we “deserve” for our sins.

Mr. Lehman is also very transparent about his own struggles with feeling inadequate to take over the leadership and how God used different situations in the ministry to reveal to him his own sins and needs in order to change him. He says on page 129:

The people we serve at Miracle Hill have real problems — massive, unsolvable problems. Pious platitudes just won’t do. Quoting Scripture at them, even though it’s the tool God uses to change lives, isn’t enough, either. When we want to see the lives of others transformed, we cannot hold anything back in our own lives — secret sins, past hurts, or running from an issue we have never been willing to face. Some counselors have left our ministry defeated because they were unable, or unwilling, to allow God to change [them].

All of us are broken in some way. If we’re allowing God to continue His painful work of change within us, if we are willing to admit we’re struggling, we can still help others change. If we deny we have problems, or hide our struggles, how can we tell others God can transform and change their lives? And so we have persevered in prayer until God showed Himself.

There are many accounts of God’s provision for the many needs of the ministry. I enjoyed hearing how it got its name: when they were pouring concrete for the children’s home, rain threatened, and volunteers who had come from out of state were limited in the time they could spend before having to return home, so they really needed to finish what they were doing. They stopped “to pray that God would not allow the rain to hinder pouring of the concrete. Soon after that prayer, the workers could see a solid sheet of heavy rain moving toward them, but they watched in astonishment as the thunderclouds parted right at the construction site at the top of the hill. The rain fell all around them, on both sides of the hill, then joined again at the base in force. The bottom of the hill was soaked, but there was only a light sprinkle at the top!” So the volunteers were able to keep working. When secretary Vera Wright heard of this answer to prayer, she said, “This is just like a miracle, isn’t it?” The “miracle on the hill” led to the entire ministry being named “Miracle Hill,” looking forward, I am sure, to the greater miracles they were trusting God to accomplish in lives.

I enjoyed this closer look into this ministry, and I hope many will read it and be stirred anew for what God can accomplish in and through people.

(This review will be linked to Semicolon’s Saturday Review of Books)

Odds and ends

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  • It was nice that the Fourth of July was on a Sunday this year: it made for a whole weekend of celebration. We went to the Cowpens big fireworks display on Saturday night, our church had a big cookout for everyone Sunday after church, we enjoyed Sunday afternoon naps as usual, went to Jason and Mittu’s house for personal fireworks Sunday evening, and then Jim had Monday off as well. I was pretty wiped out, though, Monday! We had one little mishap at Jason’s house when one of the fireworks tipped on its side and ignited some underbrush under a bush in a vacant lot, but that’s why Jim keeps a bucket of water on hand when we do fireworks.
  • I mentioned a few days ago some baby birds in a hanging plant on the patio. Whenever one of the parents comes to feed them, we hear the babies chirping away. This plant is right by the door to the sunroom, so I can’t open the door and watch the babies feeding without scaring away the parents. Monday night Jim was out on the patio watering the plants, and then from the kitchen window I could see him and Jesse bent over the patio like they were looking for something, but I couldn’t tell what. When they came in, Jim said that when he went to water that plant, though he was trying to be careful, he accidentally frightened the baby birds, who fluttered down to the patio. By the time he turned the water off, they were no longer right where they fell. So he and Jesse looked around trying to find them and put them back in the nest. Jesse said he had heard that parent birds would reject a baby that had been handled by a human: Jim said he had heard the opposite, but either way, they’d fare better back in the nest rather than wandering about where other animals could get to them when they couldn’t fly away yet. They found two of them: one had gotten all the way over to a neighbor’s bush. I don’t know how they found them — they’re pretty much the same color as the ground out there. I had only seen two birds when I looked, but Jim was sure he saw three fall, so he kept looking, and finally found the third one just inside our door. Then when we were eating dinner, he saw one of them back on the patio, so he went out and restored it to the nest again. The feeding and chirping has resumed, and all seems to be well again at #1 Hanging Plant Lane, at least for now. The babies aren’t far from being able to fly out on their own.
  • We finally told Grandma about moving. We had mentioned the possibility some time back, and her only concern was that we take her with us, which we assured her we would do. But she would forget in-between conversations and we’d have to go over it all again, so we decided to just wait until we got closer to moving and could tell her something definite. Jim wrote out for her what led to the decision to move and what was likely going to happen when so that she could have it with her to refer back to — plus she seems to comprehend written things better than spoken ones, anyway. He included some pictures of the place he found for her. She’s so secure in her own little spot and so rarely leaves it that we thought she might be apprehensive about moving, but we figured it couldn’t be nearly as much of a shake-up for her as it was to move here from Idaho. But she seems fine with the whole idea. Now her mind is running with things that need to be done, and every visit involves some conversation about all of that which I am sure we’ll discuss several times over before we actually move.
  • We have a contract on a house in TN, and now they’re doing home inspections, title searches, etc. There was one potential problem with an outbuilding that looked to us like it extended over into the neighbor’s property. but the sellers paid for a survey, and it is actually within our property lines though still a little too close to it. But Jim talked with the powers that be to make sure that would not be a problem in the future, and everything seems to be satisfactory. The outbuilding isn’t a plastic or metal shed — it’s built like a little house — so it wouldn’t be easy to move. We could tear it down if it was ever a problem — but we hope we won’t need to.

Here is a little glimpse inside the house — but I’ll wait to show more til everything is finalized.

One thing I love about this house is that it is all one level — no stairs anywhere!

  • I finally got Jesse registered for his new school and got back loads of information this morning about uniforms, supplies, finances, etc. My head is spinning. I glanced through all of it and passed the financial stuff off to Jim. I’ll have to deal with the other things later — but not too much later.
  • Jesse wants to have a last party with all his friends and classmates. I am not sure when we will work it in, but I told him to bring it up again this weekend when we’re all in one spot and can confer on the best time.

And I think that’s about it, for now, in the land of Stray Thoughts. There are other things developing which I can’t share quite yet, but that’s probably more than enough for one post, anyway.

Happy Wednesday!

Cliques? Really?

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I’ve mentioned before that I went to a middle school that was extremely cliquish, with set groups which didn’t interact much with each other or anyone new. It made it very hard for a new person to make friends unless someone in one of the groups noticed them and brought them in.

But sometimes I hear people who feel a little on the outside of things accuse other people of being cliquish, and that’s not always the case. It’s especially sad when people feel that way in church. I imagine, human nature being what it is, it’s possible there are some churches which do have cliques, and that’s abominable. But sometimes it’s just a matter of certain groups of people who know each other better just because they do things together. Unfortunately, when people do feel they’re in the outer fringes of a group, they tend to pull away more, making them even less a part of the group, making them feel even more like an outsider, and so the cycle goes.

But you can’t get closer to people that you don’t spend any time with. And you won’t feel part of the group if you rarely interact with the group.

Some years back our church had a little fellowship time between Sunday School and church with coffee and sometimes doughnuts or muffins. It was a chance to talk with people and to get up and mill around in between an hour or so of Sunday School and another hour or more of church time. Most people got up to move around a bit and stood and talked in smaller groups near where the coffee was served. There were also soft drink machines on that side of the room for those who preferred that to coffee. There was one couple — a middle-aged couple who had attended the church for years, so they weren’t new — who pretty much always sat off to themselves on the other side of the room. I don’t think anyone thought anything of it — if I had I probably would have thought they didn’t want anything to eat or drink or preferred to sit rather than stand or walk around. But some months later I heard they “didn’t feel a part of things.” I was astounded. I probably thought something like, “And whose fault is that?” To literally place oneself away from everyone else and not interact and then not feel a part of things! People did sit at their table during the Sunday School hour, so it’s not like no one ever interacted with them.

It is true that we tend to gravitate toward people we already know. Our church has regular fellowships during the summer after Wed. night services. When we go through the line to get our refreshments and then turn and look for a place to sit, it’s natural to look for friends to catch up with, especially since we pretty much see most of them only at church. And we should, at least some times, seek out new people or people we don’t know as well.

When my husband and I first came to our present church and would go to these fellowships, we somehow often ended up as one of the first people going through the line and finding an empty table. But then no one came to sit with us for a few weeks in a row. We could have sat there feeling sorry for ourselves, but instead, we began to hang back so we weren’t first in line, and then, as we looked for a place to sit, we’d find a table where a few people were seated and asked if we could join them. Introductions and small talk ensued and eventually spun off into relationships. Should someone have sought us out as the new people? Probably. But it would have made it worse if we hadn’t taken some initiative. It took me a good year to really feel a part of things there, but it wasn’t because people were exclusive and unwilling to be friendly. Some of those people had known each other for thirty years, and it just took time as a new person to develop relationships: I couldn’t expect to have the same intimacy within a few weeks as those who had known each other longer.

I would advise anyone who “doesn’t feel a part of things” to:

1. Go where the people are.

2. Don’t hold yourself aloof. Interact, even if you feel awkward at first.

3. Go to some functions that you might not be interested in for the fellowship if not the activity.

4. Talk to people! Don’t wait for them to come to you!

The Bible says that “A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly” (Proverbs 18:24). Aloof people don’t have many friends. You may feel that you’re not aloof, you’re just shy, but it can come across the same way.

Reaching out to others is harder if you’re naturally shy and quiet. I was one of the shyest, most self-conscious people on the planet: I would almost panic if I was in a group and someone asked me a question, trying to draw me into the conversation. That is still my default mode: even now it is hard for me to raise my hand to answer a question in a Sunday School class or share a prayer request in prayer meeting. But I can testify that the Lord can give grace to overcome that natural tendency.

One thought that has helped me a lot over the years was shared by a former pastor’s wife during an officer’s meeting for a ladies’ group. She was encouraging the various officers to speak up as they gave their reports, because it did no one any good if they couldn’t hear what was said, and then she remarked, “Self-consciousness is consciousness of self, and we’re supposed to forget self.”

The more I am thinking about myself — the thought of people looking at me, wondering how they will receive me — the more I am likely to retreat into my own shell. But if I try to forget myself and focus on the other person, everything goes much better.

Every encounter or attempt to make conversation won’t be successful, but don’t let that deter you. “People skills” can be developed. But you have to exercise them to develop them.

The Week In Words

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Welcome to The Week In Words, where we share quotes from the last week’s reading. If something you read this past week  inspired you, caused you to laugh, cry, think, dream, or just resonated with you in some way, please share it with us, attributing it to its source, which can be a book, newspaper, blog, Facebook — anything that you read. More information is here.

Earlier this week, this post about enjoying each other’s gifts rather than feeling bad if we don’t measure up was on my mind — I’m not sure why. Actually, I was thinking about how I would adapt it for a talk, and I really don’t know why that came to mind, because it is not something I plan on doing! But just a few minutes later when I had devotions, I came across this very timely quote along the same lines on page 154 of Hoping for Something Better: Refusing to Settle for Life as Usual, a Bible study by Nancy Guthrie. This is in a section discussing Hebrews 12:1-2:

We’re not competing against each other: we’re encouraging each other. We’re competing against Satan, the world’s system, our own flesh. Let’s keep our focus on the race marked out for us, not on those around us.

As we each run our own race in the Christian life, we don’t need to measure ourselves by each other, either feeling proud when we do better or inferior or deflated or depressed if we don’t do something as well as someone else. The Bible tells us it is unwise to measure ourselves against each other in that way. We need to run the particular race God has set out for each of us, exercising the gifts He has given us to the best of our ability by His grace, and keep our focus on Him.

If you have some family-friendly quotes you’d like to share, please leave the link to your “Week In Words” post with Mr. Linky below.

Are you free?

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I discovered the following on the back of a church bulletin in a box I was cleaning out. It was written by a former pastor of our family’s, Jesse L. Boyd, for whom our son, Jesse, was named.

Are Your Free?

One of the frequent cries of our day is, “I want to be free.” Well, what is freedom? It is not the living of life without restraints of law.

It is not licentiousness or immorality, because their slimy arms can soon wrap us up in their dark and dismal prison-house of suffering.

It is not the lack of government, but rather the privilege of having the right of freely enjoying one’s own government.

It is true Americanism: founded on the Holy Bible, bequeathed to us by our forefathers, and symbolized in Old Glory — The Star-Spangled Banner — “Oh, long may it wave o’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.”

It is the privilege of spending one’s treasure, of spilling one’s blood, and of being prompted by the spirit of liberty to stand against despotism and tyranny.

It is liberty and loyalty combined.

It is the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty.

It is the title to justice.

It is living as one should; no wicked man lives as he should, therefore, he is never free.

It is having full mastery over all matter.

Freedom ends where tyranny begins.

It comes by mastering one’s self.

It comes through knowing the truth. “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).

It comes through receiving Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36). “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1, NAS). “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2). Hallelujah! What a Saviour!

Freedom is that which one receives from God in the new birth. Man cannot govern himself, because, when all restraints are taken away, then evil dethrones him. He can only find rest (soul rest; freedom) in the arms of Jesus Christ. Are you free?

Laudable Linkage and Grandma’s Birthday

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We enjoyed celebrating Grandma’s 82nd birthday last night  with Pizza, cake, presents and “Team Scrabble.”

I don’t know how many people are around this holiday weekend, but here are a few things I’ve enjoyed reading the past couple of weeks.

Sometimes It’s Just Plain Hard, a very honest perspective that not everyone has beautiful, inspiring last days and death, but the hardness is all the more reminder that death is an enemy and Christ has overcome it and offers new life.

Another on the subject of death: I was brought to tears by the text of The Long Goodnight, HT to Challies. My own preferences for musical style is more conservative than the accompaniment here, but the text is from an old German hymn.

Laura introduced me to the M. O. B. Society (Mothers of Boys) with the post A Woman of God in a Household of Boys.

The High Calling of a Wife and Mother in Biblical Perspective.

“If Anyone Destroys God’s Temple…” Very convicting, not the usual take you see on this passage.

Beware the anger of man that attempts to produce the righteousness of God.

How can I make sure I am regularly shepherding everyone in the church?

In the “something to think about” department: Girlie Christianity.

Hope all my American friends have a happy Independence Day! I’ve loved this explanation of the Declaration of Independence by Red Skelton since I first heard it:

Friday’s Fave Five

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Susanne at Living to Tell the Story hosts Friday’s Fave Five so we can share our favorite things from the last week. This has been a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God gives. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

Here are some of my favorites from this week:

1. Making a dent in cleaning out our shed and finding some treasures while doing so.

2. Finding some baby birds in the hanging plants on the patio. I can see the parents flying in and out from my kitchen window.

I don’t know what kind of birds they are, but even the full grown parents aren’t very big.

3. This sausage, pasta, and veggies dish:

I adapted it from this recipe: I use turkey sausage (from Hillshire Farms — really good flavor, and no, this isn’t a paid ad. 🙂 ); I do not use tomatoes or green pepper; I do use yellow summer squash as well as zucchini; and I use elbow macaroni instead of penne pasta — I love most pasta but have never liked penne for some reason. This is a hearty, filling meal, but it is not heavy — it has a light summery feel.

4. My very own breakfast bowl, which I was making long before they became popular at fast food places. 🙂

I adapted it to a single serving from this recipe for Country-Style Eggs.

5. I don’t think I have ever before mentioned food as three of my five faves — but, hey, why not. 🙂 Every now and then I enjoy those Nestle’s Toll House “break-apart and bake” cookie dough packages. I know recipe purists who frown on those, but sometimes I just get a hankering for nearly homemade cookies when I really don’t have time to make them, and those fit the bill today.

Hope you have a great weekend and a happy Fourth of July! Today is Grandma’s 82nd birthday, so we’re having her over for pizza and birthday cake this evening.

Flashback Friday: Patriotic Memories

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Mocha With Linda hosts a weekly meme called Flashback Friday. She’ll post a question every Thursday, and then Friday we can link our answers up on her site.

The question for this week is about celebrating the Fourth of July as we grew up:

When you were growing up, did your family do anything special to celebrate Independence Day or other patriotic occasions? Did you hang a flag? What about neighborhood or town parades, picnics, neighborhood parties, etc.? Did you attend fireworks displays? Were personal fireworks permitted where you lived and, if so, did your family do them?

We didn’t hang a flag at all, and I can’t remember parades for the Fourth during my childhood. We may have gone a time or two, but it wasn’t a regular thing if we did at all. We probably had cookouts. The only thing I remember for sure is that my dad splurged on fireworks, and he didn’t splurge on much, so it was kind of a big deal. We were allowed to have personal fireworks (which really makes me chafe under the prohibition of them in our city limits now). We never liked the firecrackers that just made noise, but we always got sparklers for the kids, of course, and bottle rockets and the like, and my dad always got one or two really big “pretty” ones to cap the night off with. Fun memories!

Updated to add: We loved getting fireworks when our kids were little: we especially loved ones that were in little tanks that looked like they were shooting each other, or once we got some in the shape of a boat that floated and shot off in a little fountain we had at the time. But at our current location fireworks are not allowed in the city limits, so, as I said, we’ve chafed under that. But my son and daughter-in-law live in the county, outside the city limits! So we enjoyed having fireworks there on New Year’s Ever and plan to again for the Fourth.

I only remember going to one Fourth of July parade, when we moved to GA several years ago and were new to a small town. It was a fun, typical small town parade.

We occasionally go to some of the big fireworks displays held locally. It was kind of a fun thing in that small town we were in in GA and not too big and crowded, but here, I really, really dislike the crowds, traffic, and porta-potties, so I am not that crazy about going. But sometimes we still do as a family thing. Sometimes we’ll stay home and we’ll flip back and fourth through some of the various specials on TV that night.

I’ve always loved this quote by John Adams:

From a letter John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail on July 3, 1776, sharing his thoughts about celebrating the Independence Day, with the original spelling:

The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

Our country has its problems, but I still firmly believe it is the best country on earth (no offense to readers from other countries — I imagine you feel that way about yours), and that’s worth celebrating.