The Best Gift God, has ever given me... the gift of Salvation through Jesus. Because of Jesus, I am adopted into the family of God! I also have a wonderful Heavenly Father, who is God!
Marquis de Lafayette landed in South Carolina to serve the Continental Army alongside George Washington today in 1777! He was 19 years old.
🎥: Grok Imagine
"Upon this your confession, I, by virtue of my office, as a called and ordained servant of the Word, announce the grace of God unto all of you, and in the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit."
June 14, 1777: The Second Continental Congress passed the Flag Act.
This made the Stars and Stripes the official flag of the United States!
🎥: The White House
In America, a warehouse store. A fully roasted chicken costs five dollars, the raw chicken beside it costs seven, and I stood between them like a man between two truths.
Golden. Hot. Seasoned. Spinning in glory under the lights, in a line of its brothers. Four dollars and ninety-nine cents.
I checked the raw birds. Seven dollars. Pale. Cold. You must do everything yourself.
This is not commerce. Commerce does not move backward. Somewhere in this building, mathematics lies defeated.
I asked the man at the counter. "How is the cooked bird cheaper than the raw bird?"
"Been five bucks forever. They keep it that way."
"But the store loses."
"Yep. On purpose."
On purpose. I held my receipt with both hands.
In my land, a lord who lowered the price of rice in a hard winter was remembered for generations. They built him a small shrine. This store does it every day, with chicken, and tells no one.
A woman behind me grew tired of my reverence. "It's just a chicken, sir."
It is not just a chicken. It is a wound the merchant takes on purpose, so that anyone, on any day, with five dollars, eats like a lord. The bird is the message. The price is the vow.
I will confess: I bought two. I did not need two. The second was not hunger. It was gratitude, and it was delicious.
Some prices are not prices. They are promises.
I return every week now. I take one bird. I bow toward the deli, briefly, so as not to alarm the staff. They have begun nodding back.
The vow holds. The bird turns. Five dollars.
Long may it spin.
USA. A grocery register. The cashier held up my crackers and said "oh, these are SO good," and I understood that my entire basket was being judged.
I had not known checkout was an evaluation. No one tells you. The items ride the belt one by one, and the magistrate lifts each, and some receive a verdict.
"These chips? SO good." Approval. My heart rose.
"Oh, I love this salsa." Two for two. I stood straighter.
Then she scanned my mustard in silence.
Silence. No comment. The mustard passed unjudged, which is worse than condemned. I stared at it in the bag. What did I not know? Who buys the correct mustard? Where do they learn?
"And the mustard?" I asked. I could not stop myself.
"...it's fine."
Fine. In my land, when the tea master calls your tea "fine," you train for another decade. I will train.
The man behind me saw my face. "She's just makin' conversation, man."
Conversation. Sir. She has tasted EVERYTHING. She stands at the gate of the food and watches what ten thousand households carry home, and she has formed views, and for a few seconds those views are aimed at your basket. There is no more qualified judge in this nation. The judges of my land studied twenty years. She studies forty hours a week, scanner in hand.
In Japan, the cashier would sooner faint than comment on your groceries. Here, the verdicts are free.
A man does not shop to fill a basket. He shops to hear, at the gate, that he chose well.
I confess I now select one item each week purely to earn her praise. This week: the crackers again.
"These are SO good," she said.
I know. I know.
"We take the stars from heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity, representing our liberty." —George Washington
They’ve been insisting they’re twins since they were in preschool. Nearly a decade later, the pair is still proving sisterhood goes beyond genetics. @SteveHartmanCBS is On the Road in Miami.
Dear Father,
In this weary, troubled world of darkness & division, wrap Your peace around every restless heart tonight.
Comfort the grieving, & shine Your light into every shadow of fear.
Renew our hope for dawn, & let Your perfect love fill us.
Amen
Good night, everyone!
So it seems like the ordinary folks of all these countries—Europe, Japan, South Africa—like each other very much. Lies from our elites keep us from enjoying our own and each other’s culture as much as we should.
When I go to Germany, I want German culture. When I go to Ireland, I want Irish culture, when I go to Japan, I want Japanese culture.
I don’t want everywhere to be the same with enforced multiculturalism that feels like no particular place.