Fool!

"...This very night your soul will be required of you..."
Luke 12:20
NKJV

America, America.  Home of the free and the brave...  But, for how long, I wonder? We have just finished one of the most brutal election seasons of my lifetime, marked by lies and counter lies, corruption so deep that many no longer even trust the electoral process.  Was the election stolen?  We will never know.  We have no way of verifying the count that seems to be laughably inaccurate.

The division in our country runs deep.  The hostility and anger, sometimes bordering on rage on both sides sends chills through my spine.  The election may be over but the anger is not.  For many, there is outrage and alienation for those whose battle ended in defeat.  It is chilling to watch as the intensity continues to rise.  Where are we going with all of this rage?

As an American who loves my country, I fear for her future.  But, as a believer in Jesus Christ, I have read the prophesies regarding the end times and I must concede, we may be watching those prophesies unfold right before our eyes.  It appears more and more likely...

God's plan for His world is advancing on His time table.  He does not need our approval for Him to move forward with His purpose and plan, even if that plan means the possible destruction of America. Given the state of the Union, collapse of our once mighty and prosperous nation appears to be almost inevitable.  The seeds of destruction have been carefully sown and appear to be about to come to full bloom with the blessing of an electorate that chose to put blinders on rather than look, clear eyed, at the signs that are all around us.

Again, I must admit, I fiercely love and advocate for America.  I am a daughter of America.  I am so grateful to have been born here and birthed all of my children in this beautiful land.  But, why do I hear the Lord asking me if I am making an idol of this land that I love?  Do I love her more than I love Him?  Will I yield America to Him to do what He will with her? I am struggling with this, truthfully.  I want to protect America as she has protected me.  But, protect her from the Lord, I know I cannot do. Like Abraham, I hear him calling me to lay my Isaac down on the altar.  If he lays the knife to her throat, do I trust He has a purpose and a plan that is better than any I have?  It is so painful to slay our idols...

I pray for the healing of America.  We so need healing.  We are wounded and bleeding.  Yet, we strut up and down the streets arrogantly flaunting our sins.  In a drunken stupor, we raise our glasses to toast ourselves.  We are riding the crest of the wave.  Until God calls our bluff and rebukes us in our sin.

I pray that there is still time for America to come to her senses.  Or better than that - to her knees. Have we so forgotten who God is and who we are?  Are we really so arrogant and full of ourselves that we think we can escape the judgment of a just God?  I fear I know the answer before I hear it.  We have gorged ourselves on our own arrogance and pride.  Does anybody hear the Lord calling us back from the edge?  We have become a nation of fools, reveling in our folly. How much we need to remember, "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."  Proverbs 9:10.  No one seems to fear Him anymore. Dear God, save us from ourselves...

May God have mercy on my homeland, my beloved America.  We are very long over due for repentance...

Memories...

Source: google.com via Maureen on Pinterest

"He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High,

Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty..." Psalm 91:1

I woke up to the phone wringing off the hook. I had decided the day before to take the day off from work. I felt strangely exhausted and just needed a day to rest. This was unusual for me. It was just the beginning of the work week. I was taking off on a Tuesday. Normally, I saved vacation days for extended weekends. But, for some reason I was simply exhausted.

I answered the phone in a haze of sleep to hear my daughter, Christy, who lived just ten minutes away from me, sobbing uncontrollably on the phone. I heard her say something about the Pentagon. The Twin Towers were on fire... Was I dreaming? What was going on? She told me to turn on the T.V. I couldn't do that. It had just broken a few days earlier and I hadn't replaced it yet. Suddenly our call was interrupted with another call from my son asking in a controlled but ominous voice if I had heard the news. All at once it dawned on me. My daughter, Kim, lives in New York and worked in Manhattan, just a few blocks from the World Trade Center. All at once I began to scream for my daughter. Where was she? Was she trapped in the middle of this nightmare from hell? They told me they had tried to call her and couldn't get through. The phone lines were all dead. I could not believe what I was hearing. I hung up the phone and headed for my daughter's house. It was only about nine o'clock in the morning on a beautiful September day. Everything had suddenly gone black...

We spent the morning transfixed in front of the television, watching frame after frame of the towers burning, the Pentagon on fire, people fleeing for their lives. All the while, we tried in vain to reach my daughter in New York, to no avail. Like all of America that day, we were in shock.

Midway through the day, my son-in-law called to tell me that Kim had called the school where he and I worked to tell me she was OK. Since I wasn't there, they had gotten him out of his classroom to take the call. They told me later that he had broken down sobbing when he heard her voice. I wasn't able to speak with her until much later in the day. When I did, this is what she told me.

She had been at work at the start of the day, just a few blocks from the Twin Towers. People were waking up, getting their coffee, easing into the day. They were surprised to see what looked like confetti falling from the sky. Laughing that someone had forgotten to tell them there was a ticker tape parade that day, they ran to the window to see the parade. Standing there, innocently searching for a parade that didn't exist, they watched in horror as the second plane flew directly into the second tower.

The loud speaker announced that everyone was free to go or free to stay. It was up to the employees to decide what they would do. Everyone was terrified to stay and terrified to leave. They had no idea what was coming next. Within minutes, everyone decided to flee. To try to get out of the city as quickly as possible. All the transportation lines on the subway had been broken. Cell phone lines had been destroyed. To get out of the city, they had to flee on foot. She was among the thousands of ghost like creatures, covered from head to foot in dust and grime, with terror etched across their faces, fleeing the city that day.

The only way out was across the Brooklyn Bridge. In the midst of the mass exodus across that bridge, she said she looked around. Chasing her down from behind was a tunnel of smoke and dust. In the harbor of the famous Hudson River, war ships had begun to gather. Overhead, the sky was filling with war planes. The people in New York, who were caught in the middle of this tragedy, did not have access to the news reports the rest of us were getting. They had no idea what was going to happen next. My daughter told me they were sure we were at war.

With thousands of people fleeing for their lives across the bridge, someone screamed that they were going to blow up the bridge. It is a miracle that people did not panic, which would have led to the loss of even more lives. Shortly after she made it across the bridge it was closed...

When she arrived home to her apartment in Brooklyn, many miles away from the Twin Towers, she found every inch covered with the grimy dust from the tunnel that had chased them all as they left the city. There was no escaping it. It was everywhere.

Later, she told me the city was a morgue. On every tree there were pictures of lost loved ones, with the heartbreaking plea - “Have you seen _______?” The smell of death was everywhere...

I will never forget the stories she told me about that day. When she came home for a few days shortly after-wards, she lay on the couch, curled up in a fetal position, too numb to speak. She was in shock. There is little any of us can say at a moment like this. Our words are empty. In that moment of overwhelming grief and sadness, I read to my daughter from the 91^st Psalm. In that moment, I felt the presence of the Lord invade my little apartment. To comfort, to reassure, to remind us both that He is here. He sees. He cares. And He is able to heal the unthinkable...

To this day, I cannot go through September 11^th without sobbing at the memories of what took place that day. That He saved my daughter from the fire, quite literally, is something I will never forget. For the many, many thousands of family members who wept for loved ones that never called, never returned, my heart aches. You are in my prayers always.

May God be our comfort, our refuge, our strength. May He forgive us our sins as a nation. May God bless America. Land that I love...

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory...

"Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord..."

My memories of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  are very vivid, even today.  I was a young woman when he was assassinated and I remember it well.  Driving through the streets of Chicago, it was shocking to see the National Guard, with rifles drawn, on every street corner of the city.  Armored military tanks patrolled the streets of American cities, hoping to diffuse the riots that were feared on the heels of King's murder.


But I believe the nation was so paralyzed with grief that the riots never materialized.  It is an amazing thing to witness the overwhelming sorrow that stops an entire nation as it collectively weeps for the senseless loss of a leader as admirable as Dr. King.


I am not black.  But I had so often been transfixed watching news reports of the young, black, Baptist minister who single-handedly stood up to the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the world and challenged her to fulfill the promises she had made to all of her people, not just a privileged class.


I think the grief that we experienced as a nation when he was murdered was partly from a sense of loss of greatness. Who could watch this man and not know we were witnessing history in the making?  Who could watch his courage in the face of immense danger and not know we were bearing witness to a prophet in our times? Who could listen to his words and not be convicted that we were a nation being called to repentance?


There was a sense of enormous grief mixed with a breaking sense of guilt that, although we hadn't pulled the trigger, all of us had blood on our hands. There was a realization, almost like watching a spoiled child throwing a tantrum when the parent demands obedience, that we, as a nation, had gone too far in refusing to bend to the call of God to mend our ways.  We were witnessing the full fruit of our rebellion as a people; the tragic loss of a great world leader,  a son of America, born, bred and murdered on our own soil, by one of our own, simply because of the color of his skin.


There was a collective silence that covered the country like a shroud as an entire nation watched his young widow and four young children bury their husband and father.  But, I, like millions of other Americans, black and white, wept tears of grief, not just for this young widow, but also for the shame of our country that had let this happen.


In the face of this senseless tragedy, what could anyone say?  I'm sorry was so completely inadequate,yet so deeply needed.  As a nation, I think we woke up suddenly to the shame of our prejudices. Most of us knew the pretense that we were above it all was over.  The reality of racial prejudice that ran so deep that it could justify the murder of a good man simply because of his color was laid naked for us all to see.  Most of us who loved America were ashamed that this could happen in "the land of the free and the home of the brave." It was a moment of sober assessment of who we were as a people and who we wanted to be.  Dr. King was speaking to us all from the grave.  And we were finally beginning to listen...


I believe most Americans, not just black Americans, realize the gift that he was to us as a nation.  He called us to remember who we are.  His voice still echoes in my heart today.  May we humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, repent of our sins as a people and ask God to heal our land.  That would be a fitting memorial for this great American leader, prophet and man of God.

Land That I Love

As the year rolls over to 2012, I think we all look with a mixture of hope and apprehension at the year that is unfolding.  In keeping with that mood and with great affection for America, the land that I love, I whisper prayers tonight for her well being and healing from the wounds of war and division that have been with us throughout this past decade.  

Here are a few famous quotes that make me think of all that is good and noble about America.

“Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. 

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

 And when this happens, 

when we allow freedom to ring, 

when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, 

from every state and every city, 

we will be able to speed up that day when 

all of God's children, black men and white men, 

Jews and Gentiles, 

Protestants and Catholics, 

will be able to join hands 

and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 

"Free at last! Free at last! 

Thank God Almighty, 

We are free at last.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. 

 I Have a Dream Speech, August 28, 1963

“Let every nation know, 

whether it wishes us well or ill,

 that we shall pay any price, 

bear any burden, 

meet any hardship, 

support any friend, 

oppose any foe, 

in order to assure the survival 

and the success of liberty.

John F. Kennedy, Inauguration, 1961

“Freedom is never more than 

one generation away from extinction. 

We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. 

It must be fought for, 

protected,
and

 handed on for them to do the same.”

Ronald Regan, 40^th President of the United States

“There are those who look at things the way they are,

 and ask why. 

 I dream of things that never were and ask why not?” 

George Bernard Shaw, as often quoted by Robert Kennedy




In this New Year, I pray


for many things that are dear to my heart, but  


Especially for the beautiful land of the free that is


my homeland.


Let there be peace on earth


and let it begin with me...