(Reuters)
Editor’s note: Ann Voskamp is a wife, mother and New York Times bestselling author. She is a Canadian who lives in Ontario. This column originally appeared on her website, A Holy Experience. Her new book, “The Broken Way” will be published by Zondervan on October 25.
Yeah, sure, there’s another debate to take the airwaves Wednesday night, but there’s really no debate:
America is great and her people are great — and, it’s pretty clear, sitting here today, with the Give It Forward Today & #beTheGIFT calendar that says on the 19th of October, thank as many people as possible — and, really, the truth is, the whole world wants to thank you, America.
You’re the people who gave the world Broadway and Google and delivery pizza and YouTube and the best road trips on the planet. You’re the people who gave the world the internet, the language the whole world now speaks in. Who gave us the Wright brothers and the whole world wings, who gave us Thomas Edison and the light bulb and ignited something in all of us.
You’re the people who gave the world Broadway and Google and delivery pizza and YouTube and the best road trips on the planet. You’re the people who gave the world the internet, the language the whole world now speaks in. Who gave us the Wright brothers and the whole world wings, who gave us Thomas Edison and the light bulb and ignited something in all of us.
You gave us all lemonade stands and apple pie and Tex-Mex and Wrigley Field and Fenway Park and wheeled suitcases and the RV and the NFL and the glory of KFC. The people who gave us lasers and calculators and the Commodore 64, gave us all washing machines and Facebook and photocopiers and popcorn makers and the jukebox to crank out the best tunes.
And you may be a family hashing things out right now and but the world thanks you for hanging in there because you do the greatest things.
You’re the people who propelled us off the planet, who put footprints on the moon, who are shooting to get humankind to Mars, and America, you are the people who never stop shooting for the stars and will not let the best vision of humanity be shot down by divisions or politicians or opposing positions.
You’re the country that welcomed in a six year old boy from Russia, Sergey Brin — who would one day co-found Google.
You’re the people who offered refuge to Andy Grove, a Hungarian who hid from the Nazis as a kid, who came to America and founded one of the leaders in the global tech industry — Intel — and you’re the country who made a home for a scared Ukranian teen, Jan Koum, and gave his family food stamps to stay alive — and that same kid would one day co-found Whatsapp that just sold for $19 billion.
No debate or vote or campaign can undermine it, because it’s undeniable and all of you, America, hold these truths to be self-evident — that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — and you will hold on to each other no matter what because you not only believe these things, you aim to live these things no matter what.
Because America? You’re a great incubator of dreams, a lab for human possibilities, a seedbed for visions of hope to grow, a beacon of refuge and liberty to the tired and huddled masses and an election doesn’t change the DNA of who you are, a campaign season cannot undo the heart of you that beats from the winding sublimeness of Highway 1 to the general stores of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and no vote can derail that you’re a family who knows that if an election is allowed to destroy friendships, then it’s America that loses.
If an election is allowed to destroy friendships, then it’s America that loses.
Thank you, America, for being the people who know that —- no matter who takes the White House in November, there are people in God’s House who will keep taking hope into the streets.
Thank you, America, for knowing that ultimately good news isn’t the wheelhouse of the government —- it’s ultimately the reality of the gospel.
Thank you, America, for being a pioneering people who believe in Seed Lives, who believe in breaking hard ground, who aren’t afraid to plow deeper to grow greater, who believe that the smallest seeds of kindness can begin to break the worst kind of brokenness
The smallest seeds of kindness can begin to break the worst kind of brokenness.
The world thanks you, America — for believing in liberty, for hoping in possibility, for fighting against poverty, and bigotry, and misery, for living neighbourly, and choosing unity and accepting diversity and being grace in community.
America, the world thanks you, for not only being a land of great people, but for being one of the greatest ideas of the world.
And there is nothing that can destroy the strength of an idea that never stops believing.
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