Since it is a holiday I don’t normally post my blog but I wanted to take just a few minutes to wish everyone a fabulous Fourth of July holiday with their loved ones and friends, and I wanted to personally express my thanks to all of those men and women who serve our country today as well as all of those who have served our country in the past. \u00a0I have so much respect for those who sacrifice by serving. \u00a0We are so blessed and so lucky to live in a country that enjoys the freedoms that we do and that wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t for those people who protect and defend that freedom. \u00a0 So THANK YOU! \u00a0From the bottom of my heart, thank you.<\/p>\n
Even though many people live in parts of this world that don’t enjoy the same freedom we do in America, never forget that God gave every person on this earth the freedom to choose for themselves, and no one can ever take that gift away from you.<\/p>\n
“Next to the bestowal of life itself, the right to direct that life is God’s greatest gift to man. . . . Freedom of choice is more to be treasured than any possession earth can give. It is inherent in the spirit of man. It is a divine gift to every normal being. . . . Everyone has this most precious of all life’s endowments\u2014the gift of free agency\u2014man’s inherited and inalienable right.” \u00a0<\/span>– David O. McKay<\/i><\/p>\n As we head into this holiday I love the words spoken by Richard L. Evans in an address he gave titled “Thank God For Freedom”<\/span><\/p>\n “May we take a moment from some of the side issues and from some of the irrelevant celebration, and clear our thoughts and humble our hearts and get down on our knees and simply, fervently, thank God for freedom\u2014and then get on our feet with a firm resolve to preserve it against all who secretly or openly would set it aside.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n Thank God for freedom\u2014and for the Founding Fathers who reaffirmed to a new nation, an eternal, timeless truth: that the right of choice\u2014that the free agency of man\u2014is a God-given inalienable right, and is essential to the peace and growth and progress and salvation of the very soul.”<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n God Bless America and God bless every one of you!<\/p>\n ~Amy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since it is a holiday I don’t normally post my blog but I wanted to take just a few minutes to wish everyone a fabulous Fourth of July holiday with their loved ones and friends, and I wanted to personally express my thanks to all of those men and women who serve our country today […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[37,1431,1086,4471,1220,4473,1403,1404,226,4468,252,94,237,4467,4469,596,1091,349,3179,576,1231,283,1096,145,2558,4470,3933,489,238,1716,1400,4472],"class_list":["post-4769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-america","tag-celebration","tag-choose","tag-david-o-mackay","tag-defend","tag-fireworks","tag-founding-fathers","tag-fourth-of-july","tag-freedom","tag-freedom-of-choice","tag-god-given","tag-growth","tag-holiday","tag-inalienable-right","tag-inherent","tag-loved-ones","tag-military","tag-peace","tag-possession","tag-prayer","tag-protect","tag-right","tag-sacrifice","tag-service","tag-soul","tag-spirit-of-man","tag-thank-god","tag-thank-you","tag-thankful","tag-treasure","tag-u-s-a","tag-veterans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4769"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4772,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4769\/revisions\/4772"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}