Musings on a Cloudy Day

I walked into the nursery closet this morning looking for a paintbrush to finish painting a lamp for Jude's room, and I stumbled upon a piece of folded paper with unfamiliar handwriting in pencil (Dad must have found it while he was cleaning up and getting ready to work on the nursery).  When I looked more closely at the paper, I realized that it was my great-grandmother's writing.  It was a recipe for canning dill pickles.  And on the other side was a to-do list: Meet someone at 10:00am, pick up prescription...I wished that she was still around to teach me how to can fruits and veggies.  I unfolded the paper and saw that inside was a letter written to my great-grandmother from my grandfather in 1983!  He told her that along with the letter he had included a recording of himself singing "How Great Thou Art" at a church function, and that he planned on singing another one soon called "Because He Lives."  I have heard both of these recordings he mentioned, so reading about them  immediately brought Granddaddy's voice to my mind.  I wished that he was still around to sing in his beautiful, powerful voice to my kids.  What an  unexpected and pleasant surprise to find this tiny little piece of family history that brought up such sweet memories. 

As I was humming the lyrics to "Because He Lives," for some reason I started thinking about the election results.  I've seen so many comments this morning about being afraid for America's future.  But, because Jesus lives, "all fear is gone."  God is in control, and we should have faith in his plan for our country. 

Because He lives
I can face tomorrow
Because He lives
All fear is gone
Because I know
He holds the future
And life and is worth the living
Just because He lives

I think another important thing to remember is that we are still a free nation.  Regardless of the specific policies of the current president, we still have the freedom to vote for our leaders, we still have freedom of religion, we still have free speech, we still have opportunities for ourselves and our children to get an education, we still have opportunities to get jobs (as difficult as it may be to find one, right now), we still have access to competent medical providers, and women have all of these things as well!  We still have choices, and we still have so much that others don't.  And I think we should still be thankful for that.