Alive, Awake and Celebrating

"Blessed is the one who stays awake"

Revelation 16:15

The Fourth of July.  Independence Day.   A fun and wonderful day here in the United States.  Although, really, we only hold the patent on July 4th, not "Independence Day".  There are well over a hundred countries that celebrate their independence from whoever they were, well, "dependent" on. 

And frankly, we share July 4th as a celebration day, with the nation of Abkhazia, who declared their independence from Georgia in 1993.  But we declared ours first. 

Switzerland has been celebrating their "National Day" since 1291, Sweden since 1523, and Portugal their "Republic Day" since 1640.  But our thirteen colonies were the first to declare independence from their "mother country". 

All of this has nothing to do with my point.  Or, none of this has anything to do with my point.  I just like information, so I thought I'd share it with you.  Most of these interesting factoids I got off of Wikipedia, so you can go there for more info.

We'll be celebrating at my folks' house with barbecue and cole slaw and pie.  (Lemon, not apple.  I know... but my mom likes lemon, so I'm making her a lemon pie.)  And maybe the kids will swim, but my parents' pool can be awfully cold until we've had several hot days in a row, which we haven't.  It did get hot last weekend, but only for a few days.  We're still enjoying our "June Gloom" most days.

And if I know my parents, we'll watch some fireworks on TV.  A Capital Fourth, or the Boston Pops or something like that.  For years we took the kids to a local amphitheater to hear the symphony.  Plenty of patriotic favorites, culminating in John Philip Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever," and plenty of fireworks.

And one of the best memories I have of those concerts is the fact that one of my kids, when the time came for that wonderful finale, would most likely be asleep. 

Oh, not every year, of course.  And not both of them.  But it was several years before both of them were old enough to stay awake for the whole concert.  They did it for the Tchaikovsky Spectacular every September, too.  Slept right through "The 1812 Overture".  Cannons and all.

In the beginning, when we first started taking them, we would try to wake them to see the fireworks, but you know how hard it is to wake a sleeping toddler?  So we just enjoyed, and let them snooze. 

Beautiful, magnificent, majestic.  Elaborate and Extravagant.  Impressive and resounding, and they were oblivious.

Makes me wonder if there isn't something amazing and miraculous that God might be doing in my life, that maybe I'm sleeping right through. 

How about you?

~ "Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things" ~

Psalm 119:18

~ "when they became fully awake,

they saw His glory" ~

Luke 9:32

~