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Mamie Lucille Adams 
June 19, 1998 - April 21, 2005
To all who love Mamie, whether you had the joy of meeting her or not:
We thank you so much for your kindness to her and us.
Your support during her fight in this life and after her entry into Heaven has been more than wonderful.
Thanks for the prayers, messages on the guestbook below, flowers, food, cards, gifts, and charitable donations in her honor.
We were blessed by each of you that were able to attend her visitation, funeral, or graveside service.
See the October 14, 2007, journal entry for her story (you have to click on the "Click here to view older journal entries" button at the beginning of the journal archive) and July 4, 2008, for a recap of her relatives that are frequently mentioned. Also, please consider leaving a message in her guestbook - we still need encouragement.
Journal
Thursday, July 2, 2009 7:42 AM CDT
"Blessed be the LORD my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight:"
Psalms 144:1
"We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states..."
Two hundred thirty-three years ago today, a vote was taken on a document that would be signed and made public two days later. A nation was born. Like any childbirth, it was traumatic. Like any birth, especially in those days, the mother’s pain was excruciating and it would be quite some time before it was known whether the infant would live.
Today we can look back on a century of the most devoted relationship with our mother country. The United States and Great Britain have stood, and fought, shoulder-to-shoulder against aggressive empires such as the Third Reich, Imperial Japan, the Communist Bloc, and the Muslim terrorist alliance. Our mutual enemies have been characterized by the ability to force their vassal states to support them, often to the point of bleeding them dry. Yanks and Brits will come to one another’s aid whenever we are needed, simply because we are needed.
One hundred forty-six years ago, Generals Lee and Meade were directing the second day of struggle for control of the high ground that dominated a strategic road junction in Pennsylvania. The three-day battle would claim about eight thousand lives. It is seen by many as the turning point of a war that killed more than six hundred thousand Americans in the most vicious kind of conflict, where brother fights brother and father fights son. When President Lincoln spoke to the crowd assembled “to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place” for those who had died there, he referred to the “great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”
Today we speak of the heroes of that war intermingled without regard to whether they wore blue or gray.
Freedom isn’t free. Never was, never will be.
"Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: 'In God is our trust.'
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!"
---- Francis Scott Key, aboard HMS Minden in Chesapeake Bay
Each of us must give our own answer to the question posed by Patrick Henry on March 23, 1775 – “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?” His answer was “Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”
I pray that we will “highly resolve 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.”
"...And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."
Lord, grant that it may be so.
Read Journal History
Links: http://www.stjude.org/waystohelp St. Jude
http://www.campsam.org Camp Smile-a-Mile
http://www.curingchildhoodcancer.org/aboutus.shtml Janie Sims Foundation
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