New Day

{1.Getting my vote on 2.Our daughter's voting game}

Dear Friends,
I received this text from my mom on the morning of election day:
This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it. - no matter who gets elected.

Yesterday my grandmother emailed from Puerto Rico:
The line of a hymn comes to mind “..nor let His mercies lie, forgotten in unthankfulness, and without praises die”. So much to take our thoughts and vision away from all God has done/is doing; given and is giving. So thankful today for the One on the throne in heaven.

***

I admit to being stirred up yesterday.
Not because of the election results themselves... more because of the stream of negative reactions to the election... from both sides of the voter-pool. People upset about the outcome. People crowing over the outcome. American against American.

It was sucking my "God Bless America" theme song.
It was draining the "It takes pride to be anxious - I am not wise enough to know how life should go." sentiment I was trying to inject into my aspect. 

We are so quick to muster concern over who people vote for... but are easily distracted from concern about how we treat each-other. The days before and after elections seem to be where kindness and tolerance get thrown right out our red, white and blue doors. 

So I called my dad.
He follows politics.
He is a lot more into that scene than I am.
I didn't call him to hear political jargon and opinions.
I called him to hear truth and reason.
I called because he is a really wise, well-rounded thinker and I knew talking to him would help my mood.

We talked for over half an hour.
What all he said doesn't really matter.
Who he or I did or didn't vote for doesn't matter either. 
What matters is he calmed my riled spirit.

Fathers are good at that.

This is my favorite thought from our conversation:
"I cannot question that this is God's plan... I can't. Knowing that He is in it all is enough. Sometimes we just forget all we have because of what we want. Contentment happens when we start being thankful instead of critical." 

***

I don't know how I got so lucky to be surrounded by such a wealth of wisdom. 

Elections stir people up.
It is normal.
Expected.
But in the future I want my heart to be stirred by greater things.

-- I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance. II Peter 3:1

I want to remember all I have to be thankful for.
I want to remember that God has blessed America in so many ways.

Love,

Raimie Lu

***

P.S. I had to come back to this later and mention that this is meant as a rambling over how I am attempting to alter my own responses to events in this life and the responses of others and not as a scolding directed toward anyone else.

Here are a few quotes I've observed and appreciated in the last few days:

"If the days before us, and the years before us don't look bright enough to you.... Look ahead further.... a man elected cannot bring darkness [or light] to our soul."

"God doesn't see a bleak future!"

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. John Fitzgerald Kennedy"

""These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." John 16:33"

"Fellow Americans: just a friendly reminder that the secret to a productive country is much more dependent on what happens in YOUR house than what happens in the White House."

"‎"I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend." - Thomas Jefferson"