El 4 de Julio

This time last year, I watched 40 sweet Guatemalan daughters of the King bash this once mild meaning Dora the Explorer piñata to shreds. With outbursts of playful chatter and fits of laughter, they were eager for the sweet surprises awaiting them inside of Dora's paper mache caracas. Their eyes fixated on the multicolored piñata annihilating baton.
They listened the story of who King George III was, how he brought taxation without representation upon the people of the colonies, and how they seemed to be subject to his every whim.
See the gospel parallel.
Brothers and sisters, we are free. No longer subject to the curse of the law, not bound to satans schemes, not boud to anything but the sweet saving grace of Christ. Friends, today as we as US citizens remember the freedoms that we hold so dear, be reminded of the freedoms that we enjoy as coheirs in Christ. Death is swallowed up in victory, and we are free indeed.

I can't remember the last time that I spent a 4th of July in my beloved U-S-of-A. Being in countries where freedoms are not nearly as guaranteed as they are in the US these past years has only cultivated my great affection for the land of the free and the home of the brave. Thankful today for a government that is more sound than most, a people that are more resilient than many, and the men and women in our military that are more selfless than the rest.