We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

I’m very grateful to have been born an American. I can honestly say that sometimes, I wake up and thank God with my some of my very first prayers for his putting me here on American soil. I am third generation American, my family immigrated here from Mexico.

While there are those who wave the flag of their country in ours, I know of no other country where that would be possible. I have lived in foreign countries in my adult life and nowhere have I found a place as beautiful or as majestic as this one.

There is not another country that offers a free education to every child regardless of nationality. Even those people who are here illegally have access to a free education, will be attended to in an emergency room, can receive welfare, subsidized housing and graduate from our finest colleges.

For those that say they held down by system of this country, I say I don’t get it. While you may be held down by the ideals within yourself, what I have found is that you are only limited by your own expectations. This is still a country that cheers hard work and perseverance.

America is going through a rough patch right now. We’ve overspent, we bailed out not only our own but others as well, we’ve made some costly errors. Some say we are moments away from falling like the Roman Empire. Our founding fathers put in place a constitution that still today, if adhered to, will lead us to a freedom to be who we were destined to be and will ensure that freedom for generations to come. We aren’t perfect, we aren’t always in the right, but we are afforded the opportunity to make those choices. The people who put their hard work and perseverance behind their ideals is what made this a great nation.

On this fourth of July I pay tribute to the United States of America and all of those who gave her life for her. May God bless America always.

I am not a gardener. I don’t even pretend to begin to fake that I like it one bit. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I love the end result. I love how a garden looks. I love any kind of garden. Fresh vegetable gardens, as if duh there were any other kind, herb gardens, flower gardens, they are all beautiful and they show the handiwork of a hard worker who has gotten on their knees, tilled the ground, dug a hole, planted a seed, watered and watched, pulled the weeds that tried to overtake the life that was planted.

I imagine that suddenly one day, the gardener’s seedlings begin to sprout and they are rewarded for their hard work by color, fragrance, the fruit of their labor and love, and the care they took to plant. I bet going out to your garden to get fresh vegetables, herbs and flowers gives you greatest satisfaction on earth. I would like to have a garden. I really would. Oh, and a gardener while I’m at it.

As a Christian I am supposed to be a gardener of souls. Now that interests me. However, the work is enormous and somehow, it makes me think that gardening plants would be the easier plan, should I get a choice.

When I think of the steps of a gardener I imagine his first step is to go into a nursery filled with plants. He walks through the rows of plants determining which ones he’ll choose. Then again, maybe I get ahead of myself, perhaps the first thing he does is get a book about gardening or google gardening. I mean, I would think there are seasons in which some plants grow and others don’t. There are regional areas in which we live in which some plants thrive and others don’t. Well, it seems to be a complicated process. Then there are mulches and vitamins and things which have to be mixed in with the dirt that has been tilled. Does the plant like total sunlight or partial shade? How does a gardener keep the bugs off?

I suppose harvesting souls would be much the same way. Grab a bible and figure out what environment it takes to grow a soul. Do you have the proper additive to mix in the soil, when planting a seed? Do you understand timing, season, environment? Do you think all souls grow the same way? Do you over water or neglect? Do you rejoice when you see the seedling hatch, for use of a better word,what is the word anyway? Do pluck it out of the ground to show it off before it’s well-rooted? What’s your strategy for pulling weeds that are trying to suck the life out your newly planted seed? What do we do to keep the bugs off?

Simple questions I am asking myself these days. Praying for simple answers. Praying for revelation and above all else, praying for more desire than ever before and the ability to tend my seed until it grows!