Today is America’s birthday. 250 years of freedom.
When I imagine what the word “freedom” looks like, I instantly think of this photo. Montana was once a world that existed vastly untouched and still just a territory. The mountainous environment was vast and sparkling clean. The human footprint had yet to interfere with God’s created beauty. Mankind stepped into this relatively unknown world, for brief moments, to simply taste the essence of ultimate physical freedom. There is a rugged beauty to this photo. Words cannot describe the majesty one feels in environments such as this. Maybe that’s why there is a bit of the rugged dreamer in all of us. We want to taste and inhale that incredible physical freedom of the photo. What a vast contrast to the modern world of the 21st century!
Freedom looks different now.
Freedom, when the word is dissected, is the ability to live without the constraints of the outside world or other humans. We celebrate freedom, but most of us don’t actually know what true freedom is. We can’t fathom what living *without* freedom even looks like. In many parts of the world, freedom is as foreign to them as the rugged mountain dreamers on horseback. Even as I type this little blog, I am keenly aware that some young women around the world are being beaten and killed for simply doing what I am doing…speaking my mind.
Freedom, in the simplest form, is the ability to simply be. I can live as I want to live, marry whom I choose and have children, play and sing with exultation, worship the Lord and pray without fear….fear of being found out, disowned or even killed.
Imagine that. Being killed for who you choose or not choose to love or the God you choose to worship.
America was born so that someone like me is free. Free to write, free to grow things, free to love, free to speak, and the freedom to not say anything at all. I am free. I am that rugged dreamer on horseback.
America, the home of the free, has had some incredible stories the past…the Western expansion, the Great Depression, World Wars, Ellis Island, the Pilgrims, the Civil War, 9/11 and so, so many more incredible moments in history. Each unique period has tried our character and tested our fortitude, but we have never lost our freedom. Americans, the rugged dreamers, have continued to desire to create a better future for their children and the next generations. Though we may not always understand each other, having different life experiences, in the end we are still free. For that, I will never cease to be thankful.
May each of us remember what true freedom is.
May we not get weighed down, and always hold on to that “rugged dreamer” inside each of us.
May we be grateful and thankful for the freedoms we do have.
May we pray without ceasing for those who don’t have freedom. Life looks very different for them.
Happy Birthday America!
Heirloombulbgirl 