November 4, 2008...A Day I will Never Forget!

On election night, I started writing, as I often do, and I wanted to share it with all of you. Before you read my first thoughts, please read my ending thoughts, which, I will start with...

As a Child, I became obsessed with Martin Luther King, Jr. As I read books on the great, strong man, I became, even as a little girl, concerned for racism and prejudice. I love all the races and different people that God created, I love to learn about all of the amazing cultures around the world. I am a white person, who is friends with African American people, related to Jewish people and married a Hispanic person. There are not many things I want more than to raise my children in a world where racial prejudice will not effect them.

I know the historical importance of the presidential election tonight. I am Happy, YES, happy, for Barrack Obama and his family. What a wonderful accomplishment and historical moment, not only for them, but for America. I will pray for him, for his choices, for his views, and for our country. I will not, most assuredly, agree with a lot of what he does as a president, but I will respect his position while opposing his views. I congratulate Barrack Obama on being the First African American President of the United States of America.

A Day I will Never Forget

As I sit up late and hear the words I've been dreading, stream out of my Internet from a leading news source, "Barrack Obama is the next president of the United States!", I stop. Stop. No thoughts. No movement. I swallow hard and look around the room...at no one. I am here alone. My husband is working and my daughters are asleep.

My mind starts racing with a million thoughts, my stomach is full of butterflies. And chills. I have chills? yes. Chills. I feel myself start to shake. I'm not crying, just shocked. But then, haven't I been the one saying that this would happen? Am I shocked? Or just lost....confused....in a daze?

"My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" Comes to my mind, but No! No! "I will never leave thee or forsake thee," quickly follows.

And then...calmness....like I can't believe. A calm, a warmth comes over me and I hear, not with my ears, but with my spirit, "Let not your heart be troubled..."

"It's okay, It's okay" I'm talking out loud now...to an empty room!

And suddenly I am assured...it is not about an election, or a party, it's not about an elephant, a donkey or abortion. It's not about gay marriage or the right to own a gun, it's not about taxes or the economy or any other issue that we have heard talked about for the last weeks with what seemed, without end! There is so much more to life than arguing over our own agendas, fighting for our own selfish desires and feeling like life as we know it is "over", just because our candidate of choice was defeated.

It is so important to stand up for what we believe in and to defend our faith, and I am not for one second suggesting that we "give up"on what we know to be true and right, but I am saying that more than believing in prayers in school, the right to life and the sacred union of one man and one woman, I believe in a God that is bigger than an election, in a God that loves Barrack Obama just as much as he loves me, in a God that is NOT asleep, is NOT taking a break and is VERY MUCH in control of everything I can see and everything I can NOT see, in everything I can understand and everything I can NOT understand.

So now as I sit in my living room, at my computer, I am comforted by my God.

"what time I am afraid I will put my trust in thee" comes to my mind,

followed by, "lean not on your own understanding," and, "The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped."

I praise God in this second for his comfort and his love. I praise him for my home, for my husband and children, for my family and my church and the friends that I have, I praise him for not being surprised by anything that happens and for holding me so tightly when I am surprised by everything that happens. I praise him for my country. I praise him for AMERICA and I pray for America.