Freedom

Happy 4th of July! Today at church we had an appeal from Father Joseph, a missionary priest from Uganda. Father commented that he had read books and seen many movies about our country.  Through his eyes, as a first time visitor to the USA, he saw all of the beauty and abundances in our lives. Father Joseph said, “God has blessed your country.”

Thinking of all of our blessings, I teared up as we sang “America the Beautiful”.

O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties, Above the fruited plain!

O beautiful for heroes proved, In liberating strife.
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!

. . . America! America!
God shed his grace on thee

We are blessed with many freedoms. Read Regina Brett’s column today. My thoughts are included. God bless America.

Thank You Sgt. Joe

Uncle Joe and Sunny

The round chocolate cake in the center of the table greeted us with script written in yellow icing: Thank you for your service Sgt. Joe. Our family gathered in honor of my son, Sgt. Joseph Reinart.

After 9/11, my  son enlisted to serve and protect our country. This gathering was to acknowledge his personal courage and selfless service thanking him for what he did for us as a family and as a country. His eight year commitment in the Army is complete. Throughout his service he grew from an inexperienced boy to a young man with integrity and honor.

My son taught me to care for people more globally. He showed me that he did his best at all times. Because of his service, my prayers continue everyday for our troops and their families. Thank you Sgt. Joe, you made your mom proud!

Sound of Ideas with Regina Brett

Here is the podcast from this morning: WCPN: Sound of Ideas

Download for free from iTunes

My Thoughts

 What a celebration! Last night at the book signing for the launch of our book Love You More Than You Know (Joseph-Beth Booksellers/Legacy Village/Lyndhurst), I had a chance to meet, for the first time in person, many of the Moms who contributed their heart felt stories to our book. (There were over 2oo people at the signing.) I have been waiting a long time to give you those hugs and talk to you face to face. We even had some of our servicemen and servicewoman (from the stories) there with us. My son, Sgt. Joseph Reinart, was there. Yeah! Thank you all for coming! My favorite part of the evening was when all of our Moms, one by one came up to the microphone and introduced themselves and their soldiers. We learned that some of our children were home safe and some of our children were being redeployed. The crowd at the store wrapped us in applause with their support. I will always remember this night! It will be very hard to top this. Yesterday was also my 60th birthday! What a celebration!!