"Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants" William Pen

At the end of my street, a resident put the phrase on a large 5x4 wood board. Attached to a couple of 2x4’s, the sign lifted to the height of a SUV. He made sure it would be visible to every person driving in and out of our area.

During the first night it was up, someone took a can of spray paint and crossed out the word “God” and sprayed “What’s God got to do with it?”

My husband and I talked a little bit about the tagger’s declaration. Here was a man that took the time and the money to put up a really cool sign (at least in my opinion) and like a thief in the night, somebody defiles it.

Two days later, my husband and I were pulling out of the area and saw the gentleman at work taking down the old board and putting another one in its place.

Another tagger marked it up that night. This time with unnecessary pictures of body parts and more on their opinions. That day, the owner came back and fixed it up. After that the sign remained untouched for a few days.

Watching the silent war transpire between these people who were unknown to me reminded me of when my husband was in the war. You see, my husband belonged to the 5th Marine Regiment. His unit was deployed back in February of 2003, a month and a half before the actual war began. During this time I took on a second job at Barnes and Noble to keep me occupied. A person’s worse enemy is their mind and I couldn’t handle sitting around only to watch all of the news coverage. The particular store I worked at was a part of a huge mall out here in Orange County, CA.

Protestors began to line the main street of the mall, and covered both sides of two different over passes. At one point I was even accosted at a street light with a man and his video camera “How do you feel being governed by a dictator?” I remained silent for a few weeks when a co-worker came up to me.

“Hey Erin! What are you doing tonight? My wife and I are going to go to the overpass and give those protestors a piece of our mind! Come and join us!”

“No, that’s okay. I’m just gonna go home.”

“What?! Why?” he genuinely seemed disappointed and upset at my not wanting to partake in their activities.

“Because,” I said “The reason my husband and his friends are where they are is so that those people on the overpass can have the right to express their own opinions.”

Or that is basically how the conversation went. It has been 7 years and all. My memory is not too good since my second child. ;-)

Though it hurt to watch somebody ruin such an amazing quote, the beauty in it was they could. Not only does our nation allow us to express our opinions, but more importantly God gives us freedom that man can’t. Yet, He is the only one who would be quick to forgive any person of anything if they were to only ask.

And that, my friends, is more beautiful than any combination of words.

Have a blessed weekend!

In Christ.
Erin