July Fourth

Hello, everyone! 👋🏼 Happy fourth, to those of you state-side with me. ❤️🤍💙

Before we get started, I have to let you all know that from now on I will only be posting once a month, at least for the time being. 😉 I just recently got a job as a barista, and I’ve found my free time has shrunk quite a bit. 🤣 I may go back to twice a month, but for now, expect posts around the first day of the month. 😉🥰

As I planned this post, leaning over an espresso machine and smilingly passing drink after drink out of a window, an excerpt from one of my all-time favorite series kept popping into my head. I knew I had to share it with you all today! 💗

It’s an excerpt from “Little Town on the Prairie”, chapter eight, “The Fourth of July”. Laura, Carrie and Pa are all in town purchasing fireworks, while Ma and the other girls are at home preparing their meal. I just think this is a perfect way of describing America. 🥰

One bit of clarification before we begin. 😅 I realized partway through brainstorming that it may seem as if this post is hinting at the “No Kings” protests that have been taking place in the States. I wanted to clarify that that was not my intention. I do not believe America should have a King, but neither do I believe our president is trying to be one. ☺️ This is simply a truth about how America was intended to be. 🫶🏼

And with that, let’s finally start. 🤣🤣🤣

“...Then Pa began to sing. All at once everyone was singing,

My country, ‘tis of thee,

Sweet land of liberty

Of thee I sing…

Long may our land be bright

With Freedom’s holy light

Protect us with Thy might

Great God, our King!

The crowd was scattering away then, but Laura stood stock still. Suddenly she had a completely new thought. The Declaration and the song came together in her mind, and she thought: God is America’s king.

She thought: Americans won’t obey any king on earth. Americans are free. That means they have to obey their own consciences. No king bosses Pa; he has to boss himself. Why (she thought), when I am a little older, Pa and Ma will stop telling me what to do, and there isn’t any one else who has a right to give me orders. I will have to make myself be good. 

Her whole mind seemed to be lighted up by that thought. This is what it means to be free. It means, you have to be good. “Our father’s God, author of liberty–” The laws of Nature and Nature’s God endow you with a right to life and liberty. Then you have to keep the laws of God, for God’s law is the only thing that gives you a right to be free.”

It is such a beautiful passage, and one I think of often. 💗 It is so true, and that is what I love so much about America. We can choose our leaders, based on our consciences and who we believe God would have us vote for. Our leadership depends on us. If we are quality, they are quality. 

Happy fourth to those in the US! ❤️‍🔥🎆 God bless America. ❤️🤍💙

–Sara Noelle