Nothing is Impossible, by Paula Rose Michelson

For months “We, The People’ have been witnessing the three ring circus that is Washington. During this time many, beginning with the President and those who have ‘skin in the game’ have become entrenched. The rest of us have either listened and shook our heads, picked a side, or prayed that this nation, which is slowing being eroded abroad and divided at home, survive. All desire leadership and answers. Yet the longer we look to those elected or appointed to lead, the less we know. Whether knowledge will stem the tide that threatens the fabric of the body politic, shore up wounds, or help those who’s loved ones paid the ultimate price when it was avoidable is uncertain. What is certain is that We, The People have a choice!

The choice I’m speaking of has nothing to do with who we should believe, what technology is best, or if we are exceptional or not. The choice is to act as if 'It Can be Done’ instead of continuing to lose or set aside the belief are forbears had that ‘Nothing is Impossible!’

Our parents did the IMPOSSIBLE and set us a great example. On this Memorial Day as we honor those who served, I am posting my Memorial Day Memories with a fervent prayer that as you read them, you find the courage to reclaim The American Dream our Founding Fathers made a reality.

To Dream the Impossible Dream

Every year Memorial Day is set aside to honor those who, by their military service, either are keeping or have kept our country safe.  For more years than I can count, Memorial Monday was the day I took my Dad and Mom to lunch and thanked both of them: Dad for serving in WW11, Mom for staying home as most of the women did, to do all those unsung things that let those in harm’s way know that when they returned America, the land of the free and home of the brave, would be there for them.

Many years have passed since Dad and Mom died. Yet on every Memorial Monday, a part of me yearns to pick them up once again and drive to the pier in San Clement so we can sit outside, enjoy the view, eat Clam Chowder served in bread baskets while I ask the questions that led them to speak of the war, their time apart, and what American meant to them. Even now, the memory of our annual ‘thank you lunches’ are so sweet that I find myself tearing up. 

I’m sharing this with you because every Memorial Day as far back as I can remember, when the military song for each branch of the service was played perhaps one third of the audience stood to be honored. Yesterday was different. Where I previously would have seen my parents generation, mine, and some military who were my children’s age, now there were just a few there to be honored. Perhaps this was an anomaly, perhaps not. Either way, I found myself thinking about the situations our country is facing around the world, and at home, and wondered how ‘We, The People’ have become so blasé about our military that we allow our leaders to give excuses rather than lead.  

Aware that every nation is the sum total of its inhabitants, I looked at myself and remembered Messiah saying, in Matthew 6:21, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” So today, I urge you to think about and plan for the country you want us to become for lack of planning leads to inaction and as we have seen inaction, whether dealing with the defense of  this country or our people worldwide, leads to death.

In 1945 our military returned triumphant because their sacrifice had made the world secure. Since the Korean War in 1953, America has not been involved in any military action where our objective was completed. In all there have been dozens of military actions; each one less successful than its predecessor, each one more costly in human lives and suffering, dollars and cents than the one before it. Yet we continue to imagine we can do the impossible while we place obstacles to the achievement of that dream thus making it impossible to achieve.

Today it seems that 'We, The People' my have lost the vision of those who birthed this nation. Yet on a cold November 19^th in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln stood at Gettysburg and said, “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this content a new nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are meet on a great battle-field of war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those here who gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we can not dedicate –- we can not consecrate –- we can not hollow –- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to dedicate here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from theses honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we highly resolved that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -– and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

The issues facing the country during Lincoln’s time seemed impossible to overcome.  Yet, they overcame, so let us take heart and put our trust in God who says, in 2 Chronicles 7:14, “…if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their evil ways, then I will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

With God Nothing all Things Are Possible!