Posted by
Jeremy Randolph on Wednesday, July 04, 2007 12:46:39 AM
Nearly two hundred and thirty one years ago, a coalition of regular people from all walks of life embarked on a journey that would collide with fate. Most could never have imagined the effects their decisions would have have on the rest of the world for generations to come. Families gave their husbands and young sons to a cause they would never see realized and the visionaries of the time could only hope their lives were not given in vain.
In the history of mankind, there are only a select few events that have changed the lives of so many and given hope to even more than the war for independence of the United States of America. I try to imagine the face of the world if the families of the revolution had decided to lay down their arms for the sake of calm and mediocrity. What if the bloodshed and unrest had finally become too great a price to exchange for freedom.
If that had been the case, the documents that we hold dear such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution would be nothing more than artifacts in a British museum and the war would be talked about as little more than a failed uprising of peasants and farmers. It didn't happen that way and here we stand the greatest nation on the face of this earth.
All one has to do is trace the landscape of the world and the events that have followed the birthing of this nation to understand how different this world would be in the absence of the USA. I do not make these boasts to add value to my existence as an American. How could I, I was simply born in to the fruits of many better men before me.
On this July Fourth, I am reminded that God expects us to to change the world around us and I can only hope that I fulfill a fraction of that which my forefathers accomplished before me.
Jeremy Randolph