Stand for Something

Sometimes I think during Thanksgiving especially that some of us forget how blessed we are to live in America. I was just browsing through Standing for Something by Gordon B. Hinckley and I only read the introduction because it caught my attention, but it is so true. First he says that he has visited over 150 countries names them all in their glorious beauty and then says, "But as much as I love the peoples and places of the world, I return from each trip abroad with a peculiar love for my homeland."

He goes on to talk about the progress that has been made here, and about how blessed he is to have been born here. He was born in 1910 and the life expectancy was 50 years then, he lived to be 98 was it?  Then he says something that I don't think anyone will ever forget once they read it.

He said he was visiting Jerusalem with his wife before the war in 1967 when the city was still divided. He said they had a guide who was Arab and during our tour he took them to an elevation where they could see the other side of Jerusalem. With tears in his eyes, the man pointed to the home from which he had been thrown out of and said... "You belong to the greatest nation on the face of the earth. Yours is the only nation that has been victorious in war and never claimed any territory as a prize of conquest. Your people have given millions, even billions to the poor of the earth and never asked for anything in return. Rather even after coming off as conqueror, you have poured yet other billions to revive those who had been your enemies in bloody conflict."

President Hinckley then says in the book..."I had never thought of this significant perspective... Not only did we not seize Japan at the end of World War II but we provided the impetus that has led to their superiority in many business enterprises." He then talked about the grain we provided to India and how it spelled life to millions of hungry in that land, and the grain we gave to them amounted to everything grown that year from Colorado westward.

He ends the intro by saying "God bless America... for it is His Creation!"