after
We are studying birds in science and this week's topic explained how birds instinctively know to fly south. We were awed to discover that one bird actually migrates over 20,000 miles a year, from the Arctic Circle to Antarctica, in search of daylight. What's more, birds have the ability to self-correct when they are blown even slightly off by winds or storm. The kids and I did a simple experiment that showed how easily a bird could veer significantly off-course with a slight change in the angle of its flight. They picked a point across the living room and began walking towards it. Halfway there, I said, "Turn!" and they shifted the direction of their bodies slightly to the left. When they reached the distance they had planned to walk, they were several feet from their first location.
The day after elections, I felt so down. My view of America's future feels dimmer and I wonder where our nation is heading. The current administration has consecutively shifted the compass point of America, little by little, in some profound ways. I wonder if we will even recognize the America that we once knew in four years. I believe that small shifts in foundational principles equate to significant changes in culture.
The change that was promised has not come in ways that I would hope for and expect. Yes, there has been change, but it is not for what I see as good and promising. Instead, the change that I see is the lifting of things that were once taboo, the dismissal of things once held sacred, the taking of things that is not theirs to take.
The day after, I had to deliberately "lift my eyes to the hills" and remember where my help comes from. Ultimately. Not from government or from money or even personal liberty, but from God, the Maker of the heavens and the earth, who fulfills His purposes for me. (Psalm 57) I was encouraged to be reminded online that the election results are not going to define the next four years for me, but God, who sovereignly brings all things to His glory-- Your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven...
I will have to remind myself of these things, day after day, and the mercy in this is that I am not complacent about the state of America.
I am convinced, even more so, that I want to teach my kids about how our country was founded, not in order to continue a stance of aloof arrogance in regards to the rest of the world, but in humility. Whatever we have been given, whatever freedom whatever blessing and whatever light we have is a gift from above. These gifts were made to be given away.
soli deo gloria
The day after elections, I felt so down. My view of America's future feels dimmer and I wonder where our nation is heading. The current administration has consecutively shifted the compass point of America, little by little, in some profound ways. I wonder if we will even recognize the America that we once knew in four years. I believe that small shifts in foundational principles equate to significant changes in culture.
The change that was promised has not come in ways that I would hope for and expect. Yes, there has been change, but it is not for what I see as good and promising. Instead, the change that I see is the lifting of things that were once taboo, the dismissal of things once held sacred, the taking of things that is not theirs to take.
The day after, I had to deliberately "lift my eyes to the hills" and remember where my help comes from. Ultimately. Not from government or from money or even personal liberty, but from God, the Maker of the heavens and the earth, who fulfills His purposes for me. (Psalm 57) I was encouraged to be reminded online that the election results are not going to define the next four years for me, but God, who sovereignly brings all things to His glory-- Your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven...
I will have to remind myself of these things, day after day, and the mercy in this is that I am not complacent about the state of America.
I am convinced, even more so, that I want to teach my kids about how our country was founded, not in order to continue a stance of aloof arrogance in regards to the rest of the world, but in humility. Whatever we have been given, whatever freedom whatever blessing and whatever light we have is a gift from above. These gifts were made to be given away.
soli deo gloria
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