(journal entry)
it has taken me a few days to recover from the election. in fact, my heart still hurts regularly that mitt romney lost. watching it all unfold was painful. on the night of the election, it wasn't looking good for romney, so i sent the kids to bed. kai somehow found his way back on my lap. in the beginning, he was excited to watch and keep stats, with his electoral map ready to color red or blue each time they called a state. he loves numbers, you know. but then obama started to win and it was too much for both of us. he couldn't sleep and came back out just as they were calling it for obama. we layed in bed, both very disappointed. he cried saying, "obama won't even let us have orange juice for school lunch because he doesn't think it's good for us (sob) he should have seen what they served (sob) on halloween (sob) because it was WAY worse than orange juice... (sob) and someone told me he probably will make it so we can't even have ice cream."
my disappointment is tangible. i feel like our country gave up something good for a facade. i couldn't believe some of the un-presidential things obama did during the last few weeks of the election. unreal. yet it's not. the things that have unraveled since the election are corrupt. that night, laying by kai, i grasped for something to give my eight year old. i searched for some respect for obama and found it in the desire he has to be a good father. so i tried to focus on that and give kai some calm.
really, the most inspiring thing of the night was mitt romney's concession speech.
i believed him when he said,
"We have given our all..."
i emphasized to kai (and all my kids), that sometimes we win and sometimes we lose, but greatness comes from being able to say, "i did my best, i gave it everything i had. i gave it my all."
impressive.
a positive that came from this election is my firm resolve to get my house in order and to be more determined to be the good in the world. sometimes i think satan is winning. like the other day, when my boys were on zappos.com shopping for shoes but instead they saw an ad, for shoes, with a nude lady wearing boots. what does a naked lady have to do with boots? my eleven year old son had to go to school with that image in his mind and all he wanted was to look at indoor soccer shoes. i emailed zappos, but their response was that they have no control over the content on their web page...really? you are the retailer! at least take some responsibility and own it if your going to portray it. we go to the mall and there is pornography everywhere. it takes having three little boys to realize how awful it is. but i also realize that satan has NO POWER over us when we do what is right. we will need to have 15 seconds of courage numerous times in our lives. courage to turn our head, click out of a website, turn off a show, walk out of a movie, not laugh at a joke, tell someone it's not cool, or walk away.
if you know, then do...
be the good.
"This is a time of great challenges for America, and I pray that the president will be successful in guiding our nation. The nation, as you know, is at a critical point. At a time like this, we can’t risk partisan bickering and political posturing...
And we citizens also have to rise to the occasion. We look to our teachers and professors, we count on you not just to teach, but to inspire our children with a passion for learning and discovery. We look to our parents, for in the final analysis everything depends on the success of our homes. We look to our pastors and priests and rabbis and counselors of all kinds to testify of the enduring principles upon which our society is built: honesty, charity, integrity and family."
~Mitt Romney (concession speech)
even though my heart hurts, seriously, like someone broke up with me, hurts...i am grateful for mitt romney's integrity and we will now join him in praying that the president will be successful in leading our nation.
