I was heartsick when I heard that the house in which we’d raised our four children had been vacated, has sat empty for the past two years, and now is virtually uninhabitable due to substantial mildew and other issues caused from gross neglect. We had been the original owners of what had been our dream house, and what many people described as a “showplace” when we sold it eleven years ago.
We had paid dearly to buy the house and we’d put a lot of sweat equity into decorating and making significant upgrades to it. Its sentimental value was immeasurable to our family because of the countless wonderful memories that took place there. Initially it was also the next owners’ dream house.However, because they did not consider maintenance of the home of importance it has fallen into such disrepair that now it has lost almost all of its original value.
That situation is analogous to how many Americans today—and most grievously many who are in positions of leadership— are treating the Constitutional freedoms we’ve enjoyed for centuries and which we’ve had only because our founding fathers were willing to sacrifice everything to obtain them. We inherited the greatest government ever known in the world; our job has been to maintain it. Instead, we’ve allowed our once great nation to fall into ruin because we don’t value what the original “owners” of this nation treasured. We are disregarding the very essence of what made this nation great:a belief in God the Creator Who endowed mankind with certain unalienable Rights, among which are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. To neglect this fundamental belief that has made this nation great will inevitably lead to our nation’s ruin.
We have been indoctrinated with the false notion that our Constitution contains the words “separation of church and state”; it most definitely does not.I challenge you to read it and find those words. Any open-minded research of our founding fathers’ beliefs will reveal that the vast majority of our founding fathers had a strong belief in God and those beliefs are inextricably linked to our founding documents. James Madison known as the “Father of the Constitution” and also as the key champion and author of the United States Bill of Rightswrote:“We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”
Have you ever considered what it cost our founding fathers to give us the freedoms we’ve enjoyed for over 200 years and that we now are in great jeopardy of losing? My heartache over how the people who bought our house treated the home my family had treasured is minuscule in comparison to the sorrow our founding fathers would feel if they saw our nation today. We have squandered and devalued what cost many of them all of their worldly possessions, their lives, and the lives of their loved ones.
They were well educated and most were well- to- do; they had security, but they valued liberty more. They knew full well that the penalty for signing the Declaration of Independence could mean their death, but even sotheyvowed: “For the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of the Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”
Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured. Nine of the fifty-six men who signed the Declaration of Independence fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.
They were willing to sacrifice everything in order that we would have a free and independent America governed by a Constitution based upon God’s laws rather than upon the dictates of man. The question is, what are you and I willing to sacrifice to ensure that those same freedoms are available for this and future generations of Americans?
William Penn, founder of the state of Pennsylvania whose democratic principles served as an inspiration for the United States Constitution, wrote the following words that I pray we as American citizens take to heart:
“Men must choose to be governed by God, or condemn themselves to be ruled by tyrants.”
Written by Julie Van Gorp