Today is a very special day. It is the birthday of our amazing country. If you are fortunate enough to be a citizen of this great nation, please do not take it for granted. Appreciate the privilege, stand tall and strong with pride in our country and be dedicated to protecting it and the principles on which it was founded. I hope by the time everyone reads this you have had a wonderful time celebrating the birth of our nation, and are home safe and sound. From the sounds of things the festivities are just getting started here – LOTS of loud explosions going on around our neighborhood.
Besides having a great time today, please be aware that safety and sanity are a great combination when playing around with fireworks. It is also important to remember that with each boom and bang, you are likely terrifying dogs, cats and many wild creatures that do not understand that what you are doing is supposed to be fun. To them it isn’t, so be considerate and only do your fireworks within the dedicated time limitations that your county or city have set forth.
Verse of the Day
July 4, 2018
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.
—Psalm 33:12
Thoughts on the Verse of the Day
What is the god of our culture and our nation? Certainly our God is the LORD, Yahweh, King of Israel and Redeemer of the lost. He is King of all nations. But he is not necessarily God of our nation. We are far from “one nation under God.” But we can pray for revival to sweep our land. We can repent for not placing him first in our own lives. He has promised to respond if we will humble ourselves and seek him. Let’s do that beginning today!
www.verseoftheday.com
Independence Day
All across this nation the citizens of our country are celebrating Independence Day – the birthday of our country. Looking around lately, I have to wonder how many people out there truly care what this day is all about? How many think that it is all about barbeques, fireworks and having a long weekend? With the way that our freedoms have been stomped all over lately, it is clear that the meaning of the word freedom itself has gotten lost in the quest to get more for free from this government that is completely out of control, and though our President is working as quickly as he can to repair the damage from the previous administration, it’s a work in progress and the whiners at large are making huge waves over having their free ride reduced or taken away. This generation has absolutely no appreciation for all of the sacrifice made to create a nation where the citizens have the right to speak their minds, worship God the way they wish, to protect themselves from enemies, both foreign and domestic, and the list of rights goes on. The ones who do care are being drowned out by the shouts of the people who want to have their every whim satisfied, calling it a RIGHT! We don’t have a right to have our every wish come true on the backs of someone else. We DO have the right to achieve our goals for ourselves though.
For every single one of us this day should be about the sacrifices made by our forefathers that paved the road to give us the freedom we enjoy today. Those brave men paid for the strength of their convictions with their livelihoods, the loss of their families, the loss of their freedom and some the loss of their lives. They knew the risks when they signed the Declaration of Independence, but that didn’t stop them from doing what they knew was right. The road to freedom is paved with the gravestones of brave men and women who fought to their last breath so that you can blow up those firecrackers, light those sparklers and sit by the bonfire with friends. What would YOU do if faced with a similar situation? Would you stand up and be counted as strong enough to face your enemies bravely, willing to fight to your death so that your children and grandchildren could be free? Would you sign your name on that line, the line that could lead to your torture and death? Or would you sit back and watch while the country you love changed irrevocably for the worse, your freedoms stripped one by one, day by day?
God gave us this nation. It was built on Judeo-Christian principles. Yet every day I see and hear news stories telling me that I am wrong for holding those principles close to my heart by a minority of people in this nation who have decided to be the national class bully. I don’t care for bullies. Not even a little bit. They have no place in this society, no place in our lives, and for gosh sake, they have no place making decisions for the majority of people who live in this country. What has happened to our backbone people? We sit back and watch these bullies flex their so-called muscle and pull all of those strings, and complacently watch it happen! WAKE UP! Our forefathers FOUGHT AND DIED so we could be free! Are we seriously going to just sit here and wave good-bye to that freedom? Their blood that was spilled on the battlegrounds of their various times cries out to not let their deaths have happened in vain! Wait, what am I saying? That is EXACTLY what is happening! We stood up and voted in a new President who has our nation’s best interests at heart, rather than those of a chosen few special friends, and We the people may be making noise on behalf of how we feel, but we aren’t DOING anything about it as we sit back and expect our President to fix everything! Our enemies are lying, cheating, stealing, and breaking every law in the book to allow dead votes, illegal alien votes, and buying votes. They are doing everything they feel they need to do to get ahead, including screaming to impeach our President when he hasn’t broken any laws for which he should be impeached! What are WE willing to do? Seriously! WHAT? So far, we complain, but wake up! Our rights and freedoms are disappearing.
Today we celebrate and remember the day we, as a nation, as a free republic, took a stand and declared our independence. Let this special day not become a place of distant memory, or just a day to blow things up. Make this day a day to make a firm, inner resolve to take a stand against the bullies and stop letting them take away our freedoms that they are so diligently trying to take away. Be aware of what is going on in our country, in our government, in our communities. WE THE PEOPLE are who those government officials work for, so make your voice heard both near to home, and all the way to our Nation’s capital, and take a stand in honor of our past and in preparation for our future.
God Bless America, and may you have a blessed Independence Day.
Boom Box Parade Day – This one is so much fun that I wish everyone celebrated it! In 1986, in the community of Willimantic, CT, a local resident heart that there wasn’t going to a parade for Independence Day because the high school didn’t have a marching band. This just wouldn’t do, so she went to the local AM radio station and convinced them into broadcasting two-hours of marching band music on the 4th of July, went and applied for a parade permit, and called on friends to dress in re, white and blue, carry portable radios, or boom boxes, with them and at noon march up the street with their radios tuned in to the AM station. It was such a huge success that the even has turned into an annual event where the Grand Marshall, the radio station sportscaster, dresses up in a costume or pulls a stunt. It has become such a popular event that sometimes there are more people IN the parade than there are watching it – and the fun thing is that anyone can be a part of it, as long as they are there at noon, and are playing the radio station. Without any registration requirements anyone traveling through town can be a part of the fun and join the parade! How awesome is that?
Independence from Meat Day – Um, No. Just no. Nope. Can’t celebrate this one in our house. Ever. It just wouldn’t fly.
National Country Music Day – Country music is loved by many, including me, but I admit to liking the modern country music and not what I’ve always termed as twang country. This celebration started in the 1950s when the Country Music Deejay Association decided to set it up to honor singer and songwriter James Charles Rodgers – or Jimmie Rodgers – or the Father of Country Music. This genre of music started in Atlanta, GA in the 1920s and consisted mostly of singing and stringed instruments like the guitar, banjo or fiddles. Sometimes harmonicas were also used! Country music has come a long way since then, but the basic sound is still there, as well as the patriotism. What a wonderful music to celebrate on our nation’s birthday.
Sidewalk Egg Frying Day – I searched for quite some time, but I cannot find out who started this celebration. The intent though, is quite clear. Whoever they were wanted to take the saying “It’s So Hot You Could Fry an Egg on the Sidewalk” to the next level and test it out, though the underlying idea seems to be to use solar energy, not actually prepare your food and eat it from the sidewalk. That would be gross. In the city of Oatman, Arizona they do have a solar egg frying contest each year, during which contestants have five minutes to fry an egg using solar energy and can use things like mirrors or magnifying glasses to make it happy quickly. I can’t decide if that contest would smell good to observers, or very bad? I guess it depends on if you like the aroma of fried eggs!
Food Celebration of the Day –
National Barbeque Day – Today is the annual celebration for making firing up the grill or smoker to create some amazing meat delicacy – which cracks me up since today is also Independence from meat day – and with families getting together to celebrate our independence, I can see why! And the great thing about meat? It’s automatically no carb, so enjoy!!!
It is so good to be home. We had a wonderful time, and I’m going to tell you all about it, but for now, Hubby just finished celebrating National BBQ Day by cooking up some steaks outside. Time to eat! God bless you and I’ll see you tomorrow.