Encouragement

My heart is slowly healing.  My hope is being renewed.  My resolve has never waivered, but I am a battle-weary soldier.  I need some R&R.  I hope this post by KrisAnne Hall on her blog Liberty First will encourage you as it has me.  I encourage you all to visit her outstanding blog.   Thank you, KrisAnne for your permission to share this with my readers.

The Price of Hope:  Life, Fortune, Sacred Honor 

by KrisAnne Hall

On November 6, 2012 approximately 11:34PM EST we registered the death of the American Republic. Our founders said time and time again our destruction will come from within. They were right. "A Republic if you can keep it" said Franklin.  I'm sorry, Mr. Franklin, we could not.  But Mr. Franklin, we will not quit. We are Americans.  We don’t quit. We never have, we never will.  

No doubt we have suffered a great disappointment. But is this grounds for shrinking back? Is it time for us to just throw in the towel and say "what will be, will be?"  Have we given all we have to give?  Not compared to what our founders gave for us.  Yet, they didn’t win every battle.  They got scared, frustrated, discouraged.  They had dark days as they struggled against tyranny for more ten long years before the declaring their independence.  We have not invented disappointment. We have not invented anger. We certainly have not yet sacrificed life, fortune, and sacred honor to the extent that our founders did. Listen to these excerpts from a letter written by John Adams to his wife Abigail.   

John begins by saying, "I am wearied out with expectation that the Massachusetts troops would have arrived e’er now at headquarters. Do our people intend to leave the continent in the lurch? Do they mean to submit? … Do they wish to see another crippled, disastrous, and disgraceful campaign, for want of an army? I am more sick and more ashamed of my own countrymen, then ever I was before…I am a fool, if ever there was one, being such a slave. I won't be much longer. I will be more free in some world or other. It is not tolerable, that the opening spring, which I should enjoy with my wife and children, upon my little farm, should pass away…Posterity! You will never know how much it costs to the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make good use of it.  If you do not, I shall repent in heaven that I ever took pains to preserve it."

Sacrifice.  Anger. Frustration.  Resolve.  That is the price that must be paid to preserve the blessings of liberty to our posterity, that is the price of HOPE.  

Listen to the words of Elizabeth Adams, wife of Sam Adams, as she writes a letter to Sam explaining her day, "I beg you would not give yourself any pain on our being so near to the camp; the place I am in is so situated, that if the regulars should ever take Prospect Hill, which God forbid, I should be able to make an escape, as I am within a few stones cast of the back road, which leads to the most retired part of Newton…"  

These people lived their lives with a daily escape route. Daily, they anticipated the enemy coming up over their hill and taking them captive.  With humble resolve, she concludes, "I thank you excuse the very poor writing as my paper is bad in my pen is made with a broken pair of scissors."

These were men and women of courage and resolve, willing to give everything for liberty. Mercy Otis Warren wrote, that they were "Ready to sacrifice their devoted lives to preserve inviolate, and to convey to their children the inherent rights of men, conferred on all by the God of nature, and the privileges of Englishmen claimed by Americans from the sacred sanctions of the compacts."

They were ready to sacrifice everything so that their children could live in a land where liberty prospered. That was not an empty sacrifice. They were not without fear. As a matter of fact, Mercy Otis Warren wrote, "I have my fears. Yet, notwithstanding the complicated difficulties that arise before us, there is no receding; and I should blush if in any instance the week passions of my sex damp the fortitude, the patriotism, and the manly resolve of yours. May nothing ever check that glorious spirit of freedom which inspires the patriots in the cabinet, and the hero in the field, with the courage to maintain their righteous cause, and to endeavor to transmit the claim to posterity, even if they must seal the rich conveyance to their children with their own blood."

When I joined the military, I swore to support and defend the Constitution. I took an oath when I was sworn in as an attorney in the state of Florida to support and defend the Constitution. I took the same oath when I was sworn in as an assistant state attorney for Florida. I know that these oaths NEVER expire. Every day of my life, as I travel across this country teaching the truth about the foundation of the greatest nation in the world, I renew that oath in my heart and in my mind and in my soul. I will not let that oath die, and I intend to keep it to my very last breath. I don't do this for me. I don't do this for you. I certainly don't do this for the millions out there who obviously have no intent to think for themselves. I do this for liberty. I do this for our children. And I believe it as I've never believed anything before.  This reasoning is why our founders were able to pledge life and fortune and sacred honor for a generation that they would never know. They believed in their hearts and in their souls that without liberty, life was not worth living.  Mercy said, "we will stand against tyranny today, or our children will bow tomorrow." How can we, have any less resolve? How can we even consider wavering in our stand, much less quitting altogether? What an insult to our framers. Is John Adams repenting from heaven today?

We could learn a great deal about what real patriots act and sound like from the words and the deeds of our great founding heroes. They were dedicated to the cause of liberty and to the battle against tyranny.

We have had a discouraging turn of events, but we must not be discouraged.  Patriot, when you are finished grieving over the death of the Republic, there will be work to do and we will need you. We’ve not won this battle, but we must remain resolved.  Our obligation does not lie with those who will not listen nor care. Our obligation lies in the same place it has always rested for centuries, our obligation lies with our children. Never falter, never fail. For if we do, we will condemn our children to buy back a gift that has been bought for us, we will condemn our children to be slaves. And they will be forced to purchase back their liberty "with their own blood." 

Grieving is not a sign of weakness, quitting is. You are NOT weak. We do have something to fight for, and it’s the same thing that made you fight last week, last month, last year. We have a marvelous history to live up to. We have a marvelous God who is with us. This is not defeat; this is motivation for the brave, the strong, and the true! So go ahead and grieve, you deserve that right. But when you are done be sure you know, as Patrick Henry said, "we are armed with the holy cause of liberty and we serve a just God.”  We will still be victorious! We know the Author and the Finisher of this work and the end of the story has already been written. 

I am linking up today at Spiritual Sundays