This was a post from 2016. The tradition of service from The Sisters has been going on for years. Unfortunately, not all of them could make it this year, but the tradition continues.
This weekend I was fortunate to spend time with my Mother and her sisters (aka The Sisters). We always have so much fun, and our time together is such a blessing to me.
Being Memorial Day weekend, I watched The Sisters dutifully attend to the graves of their loved ones. As I stood there in the cemetery watching them decorate the headstones with flowers and placing American flags near the men who had served in the military, I marveled at the devotion these dear ladies have towards those who have passed into life eternal; a husband, a child, their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, in-laws and friends. No one was left out, and each life was remembered through the kindness of my Mother and her sisters.
I’m grateful that we, as a Nation, have a special day set aside to honor all those who have given their life defending our freedoms and liberties. These men and women have given all that we may have all:
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
The number of lives that have been given in the fight for, and the keeping of, our freedoms here in America is astounding. In the initial pursuit of freedom, 25,000 lives were lost during the Revolutionary War, almost 600,000 during the Civil War, during both World Wars there were over 500,000 lives sacrificed; Korea and Vietnam over 144,000. Hundreds of thousands of graves all over the world, mark the place of sacrifice where brave, heroic men and women have stood between America and those who want to destroy her.
And they who for their country die shall fill an honored grave, for glory lights the soldier’s tomb, and beauty weeps the brave.”
As our nation celebrates another
year of being free from tyrannical rule, I have personally found it beneficial
to re-examine the original Declaration of Independence that allowed our
great country to proclaim its independence in the first place.
I’ve copied it below, if you would
like to read it. I also included the names of the signers of the Declaration of
Independence, because I believe heroes should be mentioned by name as often as
possible.
The 56 men who signed away their
allegiance to Britain and her King, did not do so lightly. It wasn’t a rally or
a demonstration or a petition that they signed. They considered the
consequences of their action and did what they had to do.
They pledged their allegiance
to the “Free and Independent States” with their “Lives…Fortunes…and
sacred Honor”.
Fortunately for us Americans, they,
with much assistance from the other colonists, were successful in warding off
an unfair, corrupt, and oppressive government who desired to rule the Colonies
under his tyrannical judgement (not unlike some governments of today).
The Declaration justifies the
necessity of becoming independent, by proclaiming the wrongs they had suffered
from an unjust government. Our Founding Fathers proclaimed their reasons, their
hopes, and their promise of Independence.
However, as they were seeking
Independence from man (the king), they were totally dependent upon God (the
King of Kings).
In re-writing history, some like to
say that our nation wasn’t founded on Christianity, but it was. It wasn’t started
for Christianity (as others believe), but their is no denying that the Founding
Fathers relied upon God’s wisdom and provision as they stepped out by faith
during the time of this great Nation’s birth.
Looking back at old documents,
letters, and other writings, it’s clear that true Christianity had a big part
in shaping America. And one cannot obliterate true Christianity no matter how
many times they change the “facts”.
For example:
They can take prayer out of the
classroom, but they cannot take it out of the hearts of the students and
teachers.
They can take The Ten Commandments
off of the walls in a government building, but God’s Laws of Nature cannot
be erased.
They can prevent a Nativity
scene from being displayed in a public square, but they cannot
eradicate the miraculous event which gives us all the opportunity for eternal
life.
May God continue to shed His grace
on America.
Happy
Independence Day!
Stay
armed…Stay strong…Stay free
Constitution and Declaration of Independence on Grungy Betsy Ross Flag
In Congress, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of
America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary
for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with
another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal
station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent
respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes
which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That
to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of
Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to
alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation
on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall
seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will
dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and
transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are
more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves
by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of
abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to
reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to
throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future
security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is
now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of
Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of
repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the
establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let
Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and
necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and
pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should
be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large
districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of
Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable
to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual,
uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the
sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing
with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to
cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of
Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the
State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from
without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States;
for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners;
refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the
conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his
Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure
of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither
swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without
the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and
superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction
foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent
to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any
Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by
Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended
offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring
Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its
Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for
introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws,
and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves
invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his
Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns,
and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign
Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already
begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the
most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high
Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their
friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has
endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian
Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all
ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for
Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered
only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act
which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren.
We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to
extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the
circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their
native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our
common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt
our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of
justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity,
which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind,
Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of
America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the
world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of
the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these
United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that
they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all
political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought
to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have
full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce,
and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection
of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes
and our sacred Honor.
The 56 signatures on the Declaration
appear in the positions indicated:
