Independence Day

The United States of America. Land of the free. Home of the brave. 

Strangely, yesterday hardly felt like Independence Day. We had my mom's annual homemade chicken wings. We all gathered round together. We watched fireworks as the sun slipped beneath the horizon. Everything was as it's always been. I didn't know why it didn't feel like the Fourth to me. But it didn't. 

Maybe it was because I wasn't wearing red, white, and blue. Maybe it was because I wasn't listening to patriotic songs. Maybe it was because in light of the constant stream of dim news in our politics, there sadly wasn't a swell of pride in my heart for our country that I was celebrating. 

But regardless, it was Independence Day. America's birthday. 

As with many people, my family has celebrated the day with fireworks for as long as I can remember, and this year was no exception. It was my one-year-old niece's first time ever seeing them. She loved them. Being the immensely contemplative person that I am, I can never simply watch fireworks and enjoy them for merely what they are though. My mind always wanders as I sit there, watching them rocket into the dark night sky and explode into brilliant bursts of color. And as I sat there on the damp grassy lawn last night, my thoughts wandered once again. 

I thought this year about how much had changed in the past year. "Can you believe it's been a year already and here we are again," I heard my dad say to my mom. "This year went by so fast." And indeed it did. I thought of how that time last year as I was watching the fireworks, I had been thinking of my sister's upcoming wedding in two weeks and of all that it would be. I had no idea then how much would change in the next year. How much change in my own private life I would see, I would experience, I would feel before another Independence Day would come again. I thought of the year before, 2013, and how my thoughts and my prayers had been thousands of miles away as I had watched the fireworks, and I thought of the loneliness I had felt that summer, that fall, that winter. How long ago that seems, yet I can remember those feelings again as if it was just a day ago. 

I noticed this year as my mom, now a grandma to a toddler, was no longer preoccupied in keeping track of me in the busy crowd as she was when I was younger, and I realized that I'm grown-up. I'm an adult now. And unlike years past, I'm now responsible for looking after my own self. But my mom lovingly rubbed my back during the firework show and noticing the goosebumps on my arm, expressed concern about my tendency to catch pneumonia in cool damp weather. And I was reminded that no matter how old my sisters and I get, no matter how self-sufficient and independent we all have become, she's our mother and always will be and will always be there for us, loving us, still caring for us in her own way. 

As I sat there, holding my knees drawn up, I thought this year about what changes would come before next Independence Day. I wondered where I would be this time next year. Would I still be sitting on the same lawn, in the same spot, on the same blanket with my family as I had been year after year since I was a young teenager? The future is such a big place and so much can happen in one year. Where would I be watching fireworks next year and who knows, but would I be watching them with people I've yet to even meet. 

I was lying on a separate blanket by myself, beside my family

but partly alone as well and excluded. It wasn't intentional: I was lost in my own thoughts and as a strange loner, I genuinely don't mind being alone with my own company. But my family coaxed me to join them on their other blanket and we all crowded close together. And I was reminded that no matter where life takes me and no matter how it might isolate me on the outside from the loving world of friends and family I know now, my family will always be here for me with arms open to never allow me to feel on the outside and alone. With them, I'll always have a place to belong and a home to return to. Family is a warm and wonderful, beautiful thing. 

The fireworks exploded overhead with a thunder I could feel in the depth of my chest. And I thought of freedom. The great freedoms in this country that we enjoy, that we've always known, that I've been blessed to grow up with the privilege of. And freedoms that I'm slowly watching slip away before my own eyes. And it grieves my heart. It breaks me to see and to catch the glimpses that I do of the country I once knew changing and someday discriminating, persecuting, ridiculing my loved ones and me for our faith in Jesus Christ and our beliefs. I thought of ISIS. I thought of Christians across the globe being beheaded and already persecuted for their faith with no religious freedom to enjoy. And I wondered painfully if this time next year, in a country I hardly recognize anymore, we would still have our own freedoms left to be celebrating. 

I felt a little hand gently pat my back, breaking my contemplative daze and drawing my thoughts back to the present. I looked over my shoulder to see my niece decked out in her patriotic red, white, and blue star-spangled outfit and glow sticks, waving her soft chubby toddler hand at me. So small. And my heart melted. 

And in that moment of returning to current reality, I was reminded that the future is unknown. And no amount of wondering or worrying will make it any more clear and the path any more certain. It's in God's hands and He knows its beginning and its end. But the present is now. And it passes faster than we can imagine. Blink once and you might miss it. Because right now, I was sitting on the same lawn, in the same spot, on the same blanket, surrounded by a family who loved me and who was always there for me. My heart was full. I was listening to my niece "wow" breathlessly in her soft baby voice at every firework that lit up the sky. And I was living in a country where I was still free to worship openly, in public, without consequence my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 

The present is here. This is life. Life to be captured in our hearts and held close for the future that lies ahead. This is now. This is life. This is the greatest freedom found in Jesus' life and death and resurrection so that we might live and have life eternal. And it's worth celebrating.