And the Sun Still Shines...

Clinton, Perot, and Bush shaking hands after a 1992 Debate.

One of the memories that is stuck in my head is of the 1992 election.  I was a 6th grader, and this was the first election that made sense to me.  I watched the debates, I took part in class arguments and discussions, I put my eggs in the basket of a candidate.

I can remember, like it was yesterday, going to bed on election night convinced that the world was going to end.  After all, there had been no Democratic Party President for my entire life up to that point.  I had heard of the horrors of the Jimmy Carter presidency, I had listened to others talk about the fear and trepidation that lay ahead of us if a Democrat was elected.

I don't know when it was in Clinton's presidency that I realized the world was not going to end, but I realized it, and that was a really important moment for me.

I went to bed last night with a similar sense of disappointment as some other elections.  I fear most that our country is now defining the rights of an infant to life as a severe, fanatical, and almost prehistoric notion, and to even discuss them is to hate women.  I am concerned, like so many others, about the fractured landscape of our country.  I am not even entirely sure that America itself knows its own identity anymore.  Who are we?  Where are we going, and why are we going there?

One of my, and now one of my children's, favorite movies is A Boy Named Charlie Brown.  In this, Charlie tries to win a state spelling competition, and in essence finishes 2nd.  He goes home, thinking he has disappointed everyone, and commits to remain in his room for life.  His friend Linus comes the next day to encourage him, and deliver to him the message "you know something Charlie Brown?  The world didn't end."

I no longer consider the chances of human survival to be vested in the Presidential election.  No matter who is elected, there are some things that never change, and quite honestly much that affects our lives is outside any form of government's control.  I have yet to hear anyone look back on their life and claim a presidential election had real and lasting impact on them.

I am not excited about what the next four years could hold in terms of the wheels and gears of government, but I am more than assured that the Ruler of the ages cannot be voted in or out.  He holds the nations in his hands, and He's not a Democrat or Republican.  Not one hair on our heads is affected without His knowledge and permission.  It is a good thing to recognize that the world is not ending, to be thankful for how much we have been given, and to continue to fight where conscience and conviction leads us.