Tragedy hit this day hard.
In 1865, John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate, enters the Presidential Box just after 10:00 pm and fatally shoots President Abraham Lincoln at a play at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. The plot to kill vice president Andrew Johnson failed when George A. Atzerodt lost his nerve and fled, but Lewis T. Powell had more success with the plan of assassinating the successors to the Presidency by entering the home of Secretary of State William H. Seward and seriously wounding him and three others. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox, Virginia, ending the American Civil War.
The war had taken its toll on America, but on no one more than the President himself. What a horror it must have been for his wife, (much like Jacqueline Kennedy) to witness the shooting of her husband.
Instead of dividing the country the assassination of the President brought the country closer through tragedy that so many people could identify with because of their own losses during the war.
This is also the date, just before midnight, that the RMS Titanic hit an ice burg and went to a watery grave causing 1,500 people to share its fate. 700 people, (mostly women and children) were saved, but never forgot that horrific night. Again the tragedy of this incident brought people together, bringing out the best in many even to the point of giving up their lives so others didn’t have to die.
Would you be willing to take a bullet, or give up your seat in a life boat for someone you hardly knew, or didn’t know at all? The Bible states; Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. I wonder if I would have been so fearless had I been on the Titanic.
There is a plague in the United States right now that deals with people who were willing to lay down their lives so others could live. These people are the homeless Veterans that have come home to no family or no one to understand the wounds they sustained that do not show. Do they wish to be homeless, or broken? Of course not, and so it is up to us, and yes the U.S., to make sure these courageous men and women don’t slip through the cracks of the system that is supposed to be helping them. This would be and even greater tragedy. I know we all love our pets, but maybe instead of donating to a homeless pet shelters, we could make life better for those 39,471 homeless veterans who were willing to die for you and me!
As parents we need to teach our children that Jesus was willing to die for us to give us freedom from eternal damnation, and no greater love than that can be shown. They need to be taught to respect those who insure our freedom, from the president down to the private in the military. It is a demanding job, and they need all the prayers each and every family can give them. Teach your children the ability to pray and worship freely is because of these people.
We as authors can do our part by spotlighting the hardships our military families go through both during deployment and when they get home. There are many worthy programs we can make people aware of by incorporating them in our writings. It is a way of saying thank you to them.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
John 3:16
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
John 15:13
For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.
But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:7-8