Wednesday, November 14, 2012
November 14 2012
Well I am terrible at this thankful a day post. It doesn't mean I don't have so much to be thankful for, it means I am a mom and life gets away with itself. Which, if you wonder, doesn't mean I have been busy cleaning away at the house either. That is another story in itself.
With the recent presidential election, I have been thinking a lot about my Country. The election by far, did NOT go in the direction I had been praying for. It did NOT make me happy at all. In fact, I ranted and raved and cried and moaned about it for a while. It makes me sick. I am so unhappy that Obama was re-elected. I honestly was sick to my stomach. I even cried. A LOT. Savanna even cried. She went to bed election night, seeing that Romney was not winning and she cried herself to sleep. After my rants and raves, and yes, probably making a few enemies because I was so deep into my loss, that I didn't realize I was hurting other peoples feelings, I decided to get on my knees. When in doubt PRAY..RIGHT!? And I went back onto facebook and erased all my mean comments about all the Obama lovers. Because, even if you support someone I do not, you are still family and you are still my friend. We didn't become friends because of politics. There is a reason the election went the way it did and now all I can do is pray. PRAY VERY HARD for our president that his heart will be softened and he will allow God back into our Country. I love my Country. I love what we were founded upon. I love the constitution. I am so very thankful to our soldiers, past and present. I can't imagine the fear they must have every single second of their life as they fight for our America. I can't imagine leaving my family and going overseas to war. I can't imagine my husband leaving us and going overseas to FIGHT. Yet they do and they do it because of the love they have for our COUNTRY and our FREEDOMS. I will forever have the deepest gratitude to each and every one of them and to their families. I think of Lexi and Hector and their 2 sweet little babies. Hector has been gone for several months overseas. I can't imagine being a single mom to 2 such young babies...I am so thankful for people like Hector who love our Country so much. And to people like Lexi that honor their spouse so much to have them go off to war and take on the home as mom and dad while they fight for our freedom. They are both heros in my eyes. Hector we appreciate you and all the men and woman like you. Words could never express our sincere gratitude to you. Lexi you are such an example to me! I am sure it has been hard, but you trudge right through. You and Hector will be blessed 10 fold for all you have sacrificed for the good of our Nation! And what an example you are to your children already! They, at such a young age, already know the love and dedication you have to America.
So, even though I do NOT like President Obama. I have to pray for him. I have to pray for all the leaders of our Country. It was really hard to add his name to my prayer list at night when I pray. I have avoided saying his name at all cost. Then after a lot of thought and prayer at the direction our Country has been headed and now that Obama has won for another 4 years, all I can do is pray. All things are possible with the guidance and help of our loving Heavenly Father. Our Country was founded upon so many principles that I believe in. And I will not let satan take over. I will not let him into my life and my children's lives. I will teach them the best I know how at HOME. It all starts at home. I will continue to pray for my country, but I will also teach my children how to be proud of our great Country and live a life that they can say they did on their own! I will teach them to learn to be self-sufficient and live free and not enslaved to a gov't that owns us. Isn't that what America was about to begin with? I need to teach them to realize that DEBT is like being a slave. That welfare and free handouts don't set you free but holds you back. I will teach them to trust Heavenly Father and lean on Him and let Him guide their EVERY DAY choices. I will teach them that our Country is great. That it is worth fighting for. And we will fight every day for the things we believe in and stand up for what we know to be right, even if it is not what the norm is. God Bless our Country. God bless our great Nation and all She was founded upon. So even though I was upset about things, it will all be ok. My Heavenly Father will guide me and my family. I know that He has a great plan for us and yes, for our Country. I will trust in His plan and accept it and strive to live every day in a way that I can be proud of and He can be proud of.
I found an article by Pres. Ezra Taft Benson. It is amazing to read. It is kind of long, but you will not be sorry if you take the time to read it. I have copied it and put it below!
Our Divine Constitution
".....I desire, to speak to you about our divine Constitution, which the Lord said “belongs to all mankind” (D&C 98:5; italics added) “and should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles” (D&C 101:77; italics added).
The Constitution of the United States has served as a model for many nations and is the oldest constitution in use today....
“I established the Constitution of this land,” said the Lord, “by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose” (D&C 101:80).
At the conclusion of the Declaration of Independence, they wrote, “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.” This Declaration was a promise that would demand terrible sacrifice on the part of its signers. Five of the signers were captured as traitors and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons in the Revolutionary War; another had two sons captured. Nine died from wounds or from the hardships of the war. The Lord said He “redeemed the land by the shedding of blood” (D&C 101:80). Nephi recorded that the Founders “were delivered by the power of God out of the hands of all other nations” (1 Ne. 13:19).
During his first inaugural address in 1789, President George Washington, a man who was raised up by God, said: “No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the affairs of men, more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency” (First Inaugural Address, 30 Apr. 1789).
In compliance with Article 6 of the Constitution, the very first act passed by Congress and signed by President Washington on June 1, 1789, was the actual oath to support the Constitution that was to be administered to various government officers.
The dedicatory prayer for the Kirtland Temple, as dictated by the Lord and found in the Doctrine and Covenants, contains these words: “May those principles, which were so honorably and nobly defended, namely, the Constitution of our land, by our fathers, be established forever” (D&C 109:54).
Shortly after President Spencer W. Kimball became President of the Church, he assigned me to go into the vault of the St. George Temple and check the early records. As I did so, I realized the fulfillment of a dream I had had ever since learning of the visit of the Founding Fathers to the St. George Temple. I saw with my own eyes the record of the work which was done for the Founding Fathers of this great nation, beginning with George Washington.
Think of it: the Founding Fathers of this nation, those great men, appeared within those sacred walls and had their vicarious work done for them.
President Wilford Woodruff spoke of it in these words: “Before I left St. George, the spirits of the dead gathered around me, wanting to know why we did not redeem them. Said they, ‘You have had the use of the Endowment House for a number of years, and yet nothing has ever been done for us. We laid the foundation of the government you now enjoy, and we never apostatized from it, but we remained true to it and were faithful to God’” (The Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, sel. G. Homer Durham, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1946, p. 160).
After he became President of the Church, President Wilford Woodruff declared that “those men who laid the foundation of this American government were the best spirits the God of heaven could find on the face of the earth. They were choice spirits … [and] were inspired of the Lord” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1898, p. 89).
Unfortunately, we as a nation have apostatized in various degrees from different Constitutional principles as proclaimed by the inspired founders. We are fast approaching that moment prophesied by Joseph Smith when he said: “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” (19 July 1840, as recorded by Martha Jane Knowlton Coray; ms. in Church Historian’s Office, Salt Lake City).
For centuries our forefathers suffered and sacrificed that we might be the recipients of the blessings of freedom. If they were willing to sacrifice so much to establish us as a free people, should we not be willing to do the same to maintain that freedom for ourselves and for future generations?
Only in this foreordained land, under its God-inspired Constitution and the resulting environment of freedom, was it possible to have established the restored church. It is our responsibility to see that this freedom is perpetuated so that the Church may more easily flourish in the future.
The Lord said, “Therefore, I, the Lord, justify you, and your brethren of my church, in befriending that law which is the constitutional law of the land” (D&C 98:6).
How then can we best befriend the Constitution in this critical hour and secure the blessings of liberty and ensure the protection and guidance of our Father in Heaven?
First and foremost, we must be righteous.
John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” (The Works of John Adams, ed. C. F. Adams, Boston: Little, Brown Co., 1851, 4:31). If the Constitution is to have continuance, this American nation, and especially the Latter-day Saints, must be virtuous.
The Book of Mormon warns us relative to our living in this free land: “Wherefore, this land is consecrated unto him whom he shall bring. And if it so be that they shall serve him according to the commandments which he hath given, it shall be a land of liberty unto them; wherefore, they shall never be brought down into captivity; if so, it shall be because of iniquity; for if iniquity shall abound cursed shall be the land for their sakes, but unto the righteous it shall be blessed forever” (2 Ne. 1:7).
“And now,” warned Moroni, “we can behold the decrees of God concerning this land, that it is a land of promise; and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall serve God, or they shall be swept off when the fulness of his wrath shall come upon them. And the fulness of his wrath cometh upon them when they are ripened in iniquity” (Ether 2:9).
Two great American Christian civilizations—the Jaredites and the Nephites—were swept off this land because they did not “serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ” (Ether 2:12). What will become of our civilization?
Second, we must learn the principles of the Constitution in the tradition of the Founding Fathers.
Have we read The Federalist papers? Are we reading the Constitution and pondering it? Are we aware of its principles? Are we abiding by these principles and teaching them to others? Could we defend the Constitution? Can we recognize when a law is constitutionally unsound? Do we know what the prophets have said about the Constitution and the threats to it?
As Jefferson said, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free … it expects what never was and never will be” (Letter to Colonel Charles Yancey, 6 Jan. 1816).
Third, we must become involved in civic affairs to see that we are properly represented.
The Lord said that “he holds men accountable for their acts in relation” to governments “both in making laws and administering them” (D&C 134:1). We must follow this counsel from the Lord: “Honest men and wise men should be sought for diligently, and good men and wise men ye should observe to uphold; otherwise whatsoever is less than these cometh of evil” (D&C 98:10).
Note the qualities that the Lord demands of those who are to represent us. They must be good, wise, and honest.
Fourth, we must make our influence felt by our vote, our letters, our teaching, and our advice.
We must become accurately informed and then let others know how we feel. The Prophet Joseph Smith said: “It is our duty to concentrate all our influence to make popular that which is sound and good, and unpopular that which is unsound. ‘Tis right, politically, for a man who has influence to use it. … From henceforth I will maintain all the influence I can get” (History of the Church, 5:286).
I have faith that the Constitution will be saved as prophesied by Joseph Smith. It will be saved by the righteous citizens of this nation who love and cherish freedom. It will be saved by enlightened members of this Church—among others—men and women who understand and abide the principles of the Constitution.
I reverence the Constitution of the United States as a sacred document. To me its words are akin to the revelations of God, for God has placed His stamp of approval upon it.
I testify that the God of heaven sent some of His choicest spirits to lay the foundation of this government, and He has now sent other choice spirits to help preserve it.
We, the blessed beneficiaries of the Constitution, face difficult days in America, “a land which is choice above all other lands” (Ether 2:10).
May God give us the faith and the courage exhibited by those patriots who pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
May we be equally as valiant and as free, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, amen."
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