Our Day of Deliverance

The fourth of July was my dad's favorite holiday and I loved it too. I couldn't wait for the BBQ, the sparklers, the fireworks display by the city where we would lay on blankets in the local park and watch in wonder giant blooming radiant explosions of light. But every year before all of our festivities would begin dad would do something special. He would read to us from the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. 

He knew that the fun and happiness we were enjoying had been won through the sacrifice and blood of patriots and it was important for us to know it. I'm grateful for his teachings.

I submit the following quotes as a reminder of the great men who God called to bring this blessed nation into being as well as leaders of our religion who knew that these things were sanctioned of God and divinely inspired. 

“May it be to the world, what I believe it will be … the signal of arousing men to burst the chains … and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form, which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. … For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.”  - Thomas Jefferson

 “I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure it will cost us to maintain this declaration, and support and defend these states. Yet through all the gloom I see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is worth all the means. This is our day of deliverance.” – John Adams

“Hence, we say that the Constitution of the United States is a glorious standard; it is founded in the wisdom of God. It is a heavenly banner; it is to all those who are privileged with the sweets of liberty, like the cooling shades and refreshing waters of a great rock in a thirsty and weary land. It is like a great tree under whose branches men from every clime can be shielded from the burning rays of the sun…We say that God is true; that the Constitution of the United States is true…” –Joseph Smith

"Here is my Creed. I believe in one God, the Creator of the Universe. That He governs it by His Providence. That He ought to be worshipped. 

"That the most acceptable service we render to him is in doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them. 

"As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, is the best the world ever saw, or is likely to see” – Benjamin Franklin

On this independence day let us remember the sacrifices of our noble forefathers who closed the Declaration of Independence with these words. "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." May we do the same.

Cheers and God Bless America,

Brenda