"Oh Say Can You See..." that this year is 1/2 over?

Wow! It's here, the 4th of July, 2008!! Can I just start out by saying that I cannot believe how fast this year has gone by? My goodness, I can clearly remember celebrating Valentine's Day like it was yesterday and now we're more than halfway through the year. Time truly flies, only making it more and more clear that the time we have now needs to be used wisely. Last year we were in Disney for the holiday and Ashley was in Savannah with the church youth group at SuperWow. It'll be nice that we are all together for the holiday this year.

We are planning on getting together with friends for a cookout at the lake. Lots of people are going to be there, but many of them drink and after a long day of golfing and hanging out (all drinking activities around here) I'm not sure how it will go. Hopefully it will be an enjoyable day and evening but I'm definitely not opposed to coming home early and lighting sparklers in the front yard, if need be. I'll keep you posted on that!! (edited to add some pictures...)

Brooklyn and the lake dog


Tommy and Preston, waiting on the food

Blake fishing - so much for the 4th of July shirt I bought him!


Ash and Brooklyn, trying their hand at fishing



Brooklyn making her way around to
everyone's plate, now eating off mine

So since the program the other day, I've had a couple of days to reflect on what this holiday really means to me. I've always had a patriotic spirit, even so far back as 5 or 6 years old. I can remember getting very emotional hearing the fireworks go off on the 4th of July as a child and feeling like I needed to tell every soldier I knew that his/her work was appreciated so much. If I believed in former lives, I'd say that I was likely a service member myself previously!!

I think it's so important that each one of us realizes how extremely privileged each one of us is to be living in our country. No matter what party line you associate yourself with, no matter what religion you congregate with, no matter where you live - we are all blessed to be free, in every sense of the word. We are such a blessed nation, so much more than we all realize at times. It's so easy to take these kinds of freedoms for granted, after all. But these freedoms don't come easily, nor do they come free. It's important to also give great thanks to all of those who've made the sacrifices necessary to ensure our continuing freedom. With that comes the importance of giving great thanks to the One who made the biggest and ultimate sacrifice - that of Jesus Christ. Without His perfect offering of Himself, we would be free here on earth but would live in bondage and suffering for eternity.

So, with a grateful and pride-filled heart I say:

Thank you, thank you, thank you, to all our service members - past and present - who have offered their lives to the country they love so much. Thank you for your service, for your spirit of sacrifice, and for your love of this land (and all who share her with you). And thank you Jesus, for the sacrifice that you made - for the sacrifice that could never be repaid and for not requiring it to be repaid, but for only requiring us to believe you did it for us.