Happy Independence Day

 Today and over this past weekend my thoughts have been consumed with our country and the events that have unmistakably lead to this great country. If you will be so kind to humor me while I allow myself to let you into my world of thoughts.   

Sometimes we think of history as something as the past and nothing more than that. We are taught history in a way that we come to think that everything was preordained and everything was already on track. That we merely think of George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson as characters in a story, with funny looking hair, crooked teeth and funny looking clothes. And yet we tend to forget that these people were real, that they were unsure of their future just as we are today. 

However, if we love our country and all the freedoms that come with it, we ought to know what price was paid, the story of these great men and the responsibility we have now to live in such a land. As Abigail Adams said to her husband in a letter, “Posterity who are to reap the blessings, will scarcely be able to conceive the hardships and sufferings of their ancestors.” And i dare say she is right. 

A story about Charles Willson Peale, the famous painter explains Abigail's letter a little more. Charles walked among these ragged troops of Washington’s who had made the escape across from New Jersey and wrote about it in his diary. He said he’d never seen such miserable human beings in all his life—starving, exhausted, filthy. One man in particular he thought was just the most wretched human being he had ever laid eyes on. He described how the man’s hair was all matted and how it hung down over his shoulders. The man was naked except for what they called a blanket coat. His feet were wrapped in rags, his face all covered with sores from sickness. Peale was studying him when, all of a sudden, he realized that the man was his own brother.

source

As citizens of America, i believe its our duty to understand our history , the price that was paid, our current politics, and and most importantly the constitution. A president of our church, President Ezra Taft Benson gave a great talk (I highly suggest clicking on this link to read it) on the constitution and quoted,  

"Even this nation will be on the very verge of crumbling to pieces and tumbling to the ground, and when the Constitution is upon the brink of ruin, this people will be the staff upon which the nation shall lean, and they shall bear the Constitution away from the very verge of destruction.”

Do we know our constitution well enough to defend, will we be prepared? I hope we do and that we will have courage and faith as our patriots do who give their lives for our freedoms.

 I love this country and what it stands for. And I will stand in unison with so many others,

God Bless America.