Good Morning Happy July 4th

Good Morning, My Friends!  Happy July 4th and may God bless your day!  I hope your day is filled with family, friends, happiness and good times!

It’s amazing when you think about how our Country gained its independence.  I am one of the Americans that still gets goose bumps when I hear our National Anthem played.  I stand proudly and salute our Flag.  Because that’s what I am.  Proud.  Proud to be an American.  And I am grateful to everyone–every single person–who helps defend us and keep us strong.

When morning dawned on September 14, 1814, when the heavy mist from the smoke and the gunfire had lifted, there standing proudly, flying high above the rampart, blowing back and forth in the wind, was the huge 30′ by 42′ American flag… 
…miraculously the damage to the Fort was minimal.  Of the 1,000 Soldiers, 4 were killed.  The United States did not yield and the British eventually withdrew from the Baltimore Harbor, deeming the battle to be too costly.  The tide of the war was reversed. ~Dudley Rutherford

Francis Scott Key penned the following words:

“O say can you see by the dawn’s early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming, Whose broad strips and bright stars through the perilous light, O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming.
And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there, O say does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave, O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

It gives me chills every single time.  Now, each time I hear it, I can imagine how the prisoners must have been asking, “Is our flag still there, is our flag still there?”  I can imagine Francis Scott Key standing on the ship, looking into the red glare of the rockets, and seeing our American flag and realizing that America did not yield.  Fort McHenry still stood with minimal damage and that huge flag was illuminated in the morning red glare.

I am so thankful to all our service men and women!  May God bless you and May God bless the United States of America!

Sending you blessings of gratitude and love from Sterrett, Alabama!

Charity