For months I’ve been posting to a special album on social media to share the funny memes my kids plop down on our family’s group text during random moments over the course of the week. My teens are politically savvy, critically thinking, conservative valued, liberty loving, sharp witted, free range kids, and the memes they send their mama are sometimes edgy, most every time family friendly, and always side-splittingly funny. They have provided me sanity-saving laughter in recent weeks, so naturally, it’s my inclination to share on social media with my family and friends.

I look forward to sharing each bundle and giggle all over again when I read the comments from my friends, smiling in understanding when someone invariably writes, “Thanks for the laughs, I needed that.”

Today is Friday, when I would normally post the week’s collection.

But there are no memes on the family thread today.

Somehow not much is funny this week.

Somehow, now that everything has settled some, there is a somber foreboding that pervades…in our home, on my social media, in our state, in our nation.

Even with the uncertainties of the election, I won’t deny Biden as our president like a good portion of our nation did for Trump during every single day of his presidency.

But I won’t hail him as a hero or the shining savior that so many are either.

#HeIsNot

He’s an aged, corrupt, lifelong politician who, instead of spending his first days in office to foster the unity he so emphatically urged America to practice, he used the first twenty-four hours of his term to mark his territory in the White House, lifting his leg to everything DJT did, even policies that were good for our nation and its citizens.

His press secretary is professional and well qualified, (am I the only one who smiled proudly when I saw her flipping through sections of her tabbed-up notebook in true Kayleigh fashion?) but she’s already lied and brushed this president’s rule-breaking under the rug, even as we’ve been bombasted with his criticism of anyone not following the same rules. She has shown us right out of the chute that hypocrisy will be the anthem of this administration.

#MaybeHeWasRight

This very well could be a long, dark winter.

Like the rest of the nation, I’m reeling from the events of the past eleven months, so I’ll try really hard to just continue to focus on being a light in a dark time. I will be praying and hoping that the those of us who carry that deep sense of foreboding right now are wrong.

Let’s pray for that. Let’s pray to be wrong.

Because if we ARE wrong, that means that our nation will be all right.

If we are wrong, that means we will not have found ourselves in the nonsensical, rabid clutches of a radical left government who seem hell bent on taking us down a road none of us ever thought we’d see in our time.

Eleven thousand jobs.

Equality for our girls.

#ItIsOnlyDay2

You can go on and unfriend me if you’d like.

Five people have since June.

Some of them I’ve known for decades.

Others I know from church.

While my favorite thing is to share the happy things of life: farm pictures, scriptures, life lessons, hearts…more hearts…and of course, the teens’ memes, there are times when politics and important things need to be touched upon.

The gift and sanctity of life.

The Constitution of the United States of America.

The treatment of our children and our most vulnerable.

I’ll post about those big issues when I see them, because as we all know, we’re not all seeing them.

#ThisNewAgeOfCensorshipIsFun

I’m not divisive. I’m not a pot stirrer.

I just love this country.

I love our freedoms.

I love Jesus.

I love my family.

I love my friends.

I love the voice I’ve been given as an American.

I love it that if I see lies, I can speak truth.

I’ve been censored, put in FB jail, quietly unfriended without a word said to me, have passively-aggressively been corrected or (wo)man-splained by some expecting me to change my view to mirror theirs, and I’ve had lifelong friends be hostile and block me because they’ve disagreed with something I posted.

Five may not be a lot; I know there have been folks who have seen their list of friends on social media shrink to a fraction of the size it was. I have friends with family members who will no longer speak to them because they are conservative.

This is all happening while the same people and organizations who are hostile toward conservatives say scathing, ugly, and uncivilized things about Republicans and conservatives, and even at times, try to bring about their ruin. 

#CancelCultureAtItsBest

This is going to get worse, and the chasm of division is only going to get deeper if we let it.

We have to stay in the light.

I refuse to be hostile about our new president, even as I rebuke everything he stands for and intends to do to this great land.  

I pray for him, his administration, and our legislators.

But I won’t stop calling out lies.

I won’t hail Harris as a role model for my daughters. They know history and the things that she has done to get the power she has been given. They admire truth, and know that integrity, character, and hard work are the things that bring the kind of success that is to be celebrated.

I won’t quit researching and learning about the politics of our politicians, and I will never base my opinion of them on their skin color or their gender.

How do they treat the members of our military?

How do they respect the working men and women who built this nation?

How do they ensure the safety of all citizens who call this land home?

How do they honor our elderly?

How do they value our children?

That is what I will always look for in our politicians.

My kids, their friends, any youth I am with…they will tell you what I always say every time it is time to leave a place. Restaurants, hotels, movie theaters, fairgrounds…no matter where we are, they will hear this from me when it is time to go:

“Leave it better than you found it.”

Shouldn’t that be the internal drive of every single human in every single corner of this earth?

When we are done and the time is over, whether it be a place…a person…a policy…a program…a population…we need to leave it better than we found it.

I am not confident that this administration plans to do that.

And because of that, I will continue to fervently pray. I will continue to join hands with my family and friends as we keep trusting the One who made us and walks us through.

I will continue to hope that truth will be so bright it blinds us to anything but.

I will continue to raise my children to research and think critically using the morals we’ve raised them with, their knowledge of God’s Word, and the worldview they’ve developed.

I will continue to love my neighbor.

I will keep on loving the Lord with all my heart and soul and strength.

And I will continue to use my voice, and pray for you to do the same.

Today is Friday, when I would normally post the week’s collection.

But there are no memes on the family thread today.

#SomehowNotMuchIsFunnyThisWeek.