WHY I LOVE THE 4TH OF JULY SO MUCH

As a child I loved the 4th of July in fact back then it was one of my favorite Holidays. I remember waking up so excited that I was going up to my Grandma and Grandpa Rudd's to be with my cousins as well as all of the fun that my dad and uncles were going to create by putting a firecracker in can of water to see how high it would go. Not to mention the fact of getting into the cars and racing to see where the fire trucks were going with their sirens on.I also loved playing leap frog with not only a few cousins but all of them,as well as lighting the fireworks at night. Grandma would always take me aside and put my braids into my shirt so they would not catch on fire. She would always tell me something that made me feel like for a quick moment I was special to her and her favorite. All I know is the 4th of July was a very special day in my life each year.
Now that I am a grandmother myself it still is one of my favorite days. Although now I reflect more on just how great the nation is what we call America. I was blessed by living outside of this great country. I saw how others live and how they yearned to have something more in their lives when it comes to their freedoms. As a young Missionary in Argentina I witnessed people who would protest and cause riots so they could bring back Juan Peron. One day my companion and I were in the city plaza eating our dinner. All of a sudden we could hear a lot of commotion we looked over and there were hundreds of people marching in the streets yelling PERON,PERON,PERON. My companion told me to hide under the bench because if they saw me and talked to me they would harm me because I was an American. It was very frightening, but what it did was made me start to think just how I took for granted what I did have as an American. There were times we could not go out of our houses for a week at a time because of all of the strikes they were having to fight against one another. They would turn over buses filled with people and catch them on fire just because some one said something about the Government they did not like. People were so poor there that it made me cry at times. How blessed we are to be Americans.
When our Plane landed in California all of us Missionaries who were returning home kissed the ground with tears in our eyes and feelings that one could not imagine unless you lived somewhere else besides this great Nation of America.
So this is why I love the 4th of July so much. Since that time I have grown to love American History more than before. This year especially I am reading a lot of what took place the days before the signing of the Declaration Of Independence. It makes one feel even more proud to be an American ( as song by Lee Greenwood) I hope that each one of you will thank the Lord above of what we enjoy. GOD BLESS AMERICA