This morning I am watching   intermittent rain clouds float over the sky  even as the sun tries to break through.  The light glistening on wet branches and leaves  creates   green jewels hanging on ever tree and shrub. Perhaps there will be a rainbow later stretching over  Meadows Valley. It would be fitting today. Birds come to the feeders. Mylar strips protecting the windows flutter in the slightest breeze and reflect light in endless bursts of colors. It is a beautiful morning and it’s all free to me through God’s generosity and mercy.

Today is a very special day for me, one of those memorial stones we are to plant alongside the road.  Today on May 22, 1950  my family arrived in New York harbor on the “Queen Mary”. The ocean liner had brought my parents, my brother Joe, my  older cousin Rosi – and me  from  post war Germany to the shores of America to begin anew.  There was nothing for my family  in Europe except hardship and struggles and bitter memories. We’d emigrated because my father and mother sought better  lives for themselves and us children . Like the Pilgrims of the past, we came for more than material benefits and provisions; we came for the good of our souls.

It was a seven day journey across the  north Atlantic in May so I’m pretty sure the seas were often rough.   American relatives  had paid for our passage so we had decent accommodations for the journey. I was six years old at the time and remember very little of those seven days. But   my mother described the luxurious ship and wonderful meals we had  in the dining room. She ate an orange for the first time in her life – and was partial to oranges from then on. My memory is triggered by a photo in which my mother, cousin, Joe and I stand at the railing of the ship . It is cold and windy and we children are huddled against my mother, like birds seeking shelter. The Statue of Liberty stands in the background. It is the symbol of everything my parents hoped  to find  in the New World: welcome, freedom, opportunity,  dreams and the means to achieve dreams.

It seems that early on in my life, God took me on a (then) long journey across vast waters and turbulent  seas to this promised land in which I’ve lived for  seven decades. Who else but   the Lord  took me out of  generations living in the same  place,  thereafter  completely destroyed by war. It was God who decided to plant me in new soil.  I often wonder. Who or what would I now be had my father decided to stay in Germany?  I cannot imagine such a possibility.

How seldom I’ve truly thanked  God for the blessings He has showered on me and my family since that May Day. It is the  blessings of  His freedom  which are the lynchpins  of life. Freedom allowed   me to grow and prosper and succeed as nowhere else on earth. So I’m thanking God today for every good gift from above, especially that I have lived free and not been under oppression.

Thank You God for bringing a little girl into your promises. Thank You for countless years of living free in this beautiful, promise filled country. Thank You for my knowing Jesus Christ, in whom I am and will always bee free indeed.

The basic  freedoms guaranteed by the legal frameworks underpinning  this country  can only be granted by God. It is the unique American freedoms  which my parents  never had in  “the former lands”  that  are  like oars we  use  to row through life.Foolishly  I’ve  taken much for granted. When I drive  to town or enter church or chooses a  restaurant or travel  or talk to someone in public or read a book or answer  phone call or  read a news article or browse the Internet or  make any plans at all –  I do not think  about my freedom to move about or make my own choices. Like  air,  I simply  inhale and exhale  freedom.  May it ever be so.  May God continue to look kindly upon this land and its people. May we repent for not guarding the blessings we  are given. May God have mercy and forgive our complacency.