A Word from our Forefathers

There are two days of the year that you can do nothing about, one of them is yesterday and the other is tomorrow! I can’t change what happened yesterday no matter how hard I try, the only thing I have control over is the moment I am in as I sit here typing right now!  Point in fact is you can’t change history it is what it is.

One way a person tries to change history is in repeated conversations…

did you ever think of gossip as changing history? Well, it is. I have been present and heard things firsthand and find that upon hearing them repeated realize the conversation has taken on a whole different meaning. You might think that is minor unless it is your conversation you are hearing with alterations. 

I find that as I get older it is less important to me to be politically correct and I would rather just call a person out than to sit back and take it as a good “preacher’s kid” is supposed to do. When you are a part of a preacher’s family your words are very important and can net you a sound corporal punishment in a heartbeat! 

I think a lot of us do a lot of mind reading when we decide what a person would have thought or said in a particular circumstance and that is especially true when a person has passed into the Cloud of Witnesses because they are not there to either agree, deny nor defend themselves. 

There is a school of thought that has our forefathers not really believing in God, these people no longer believe that our forefathers came to this country to obtain freedom to worship in the way they wanted and upon reaching the shores of the New World knelt and prayed to God in thanks. The following passage I have taken directly from the “Plimoth Plantation” which is a Smithsonian Institute Affiliations Program and is a quote from Governor William Bradford’s papers concerning the Pilgrims: “The Mayflower Pilgrims arrived on these shores in 1620 in hopes of making a better life for themselves and their children while being able to worship freely and in peace.

Undoubtedly the most famous colonists in world history, their faith and fortitude are legendary. Their perseverance laid the cornerstone of a new Nation.

The Pilgrims’ courage, gratitude to God, and love for one another still inspire people today. The story of Plymouth Colony, with its tragic first winter, treaty with the Wampanoag People and celebrated First Thanksgiving echoes down the ages and around the world. Regardless of anything that came before or after, Plymouth is the ‘once upon a time’ to the story of the United States — the symbolic, if not literal, birthplace of our Nation. 

In describing the emotional worship service before the Pilgrim church’s departure from Holland, Governor William Bradford wrote that Reverend John Robinson:  “…Spent a good part of the day very profitably and suitable to their present occasion; the rest of the time was spent pouring out prayers to the Lord with great fervency, mixed with abundance of tears. So they left that goodly and pleasant city which had been their resting place near twelve years; but they knew they were pilgrims, and looked not much on those things, but lift up their eyes to the heavens, their dearest country, and quieted their spirits.”

This passage from Bradford’s manuscript Of Plymouth Plantation makes reference to the Epistle to the Hebrews 11:13-16 People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true home. If they were homesick for the old country, they could have gone back any time they wanted. But they were after a far better country than that—heaven country. You can see why God is so proud of them, and has a City waiting for them.

Our money still says, “In God we trust” and I wish we could still say that as a country. Perhaps if we still had prayer and scripture readings in our schools instead of worrying about being politically correct for people who have come to our country to find peace and protection and who have forced us into accepting their worship of other gods, maybe fewer people would be waking to the news of another mass shooting in a theater!

Let me repeat that I give credit for the passages taken from an article on the website of the “Plimoth Plantation”, (yes that is the way they spell it) a Smithsonian Institute Divisions Affiliate. I put the scripture here from the Message Bible, but it was originally quoted from the Geneva Bible (1560).

Each one of these people of faith died not yet having in hand what was promised, but still believing. How did they do it? They saw it way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world.Hebrews 11:13-16

God Bless America my home sweet home!