Allegiance

As everyone knows, today is election day. I woke up this morning, said a prayer for our country, the voters, and ALL of the candidates and prepared to cast my vote. On the way to the polling place, I was listening to the local Christian station. They played Lee Greenwood's "Proud to Be an American" and then an acapella version of God Bless America. The next thing I knew, my eyes were full of tears. They really tugged at my patriotism, but not only that...they tugged at my allegiance to my country and to my God. How lucky am I to be in a country where men died to give me the right to vote...where women went through torture to make sure that other women would be free to vote...where we can not only have an opinion, but use it to make a difference in our world...where we can disagree and still work together...where we know God has blessed us and we are free to spread that GOOD NEWS! I was just really touched by how profound election day is...and so few of us realize that.
I learned another lesson this morning. While waiting in line, a lady slipped and fell in a puddle on the floor as she came into the polling place. Every gasped and a few people asked her is she was ok. One man even moved toward her, but she said she was OK and waived him off. I was torn between walking over to her (about 20 feet) to help her up and keeping my place in line. She looked shaken up, but seemed ok. A few minutes later, I was on the phone with Ken (who had already finished voting...no fair) and she said a few words to everyone in line. She said that she was really broken up that nobody had helped her and she left the line. We heard later that she had gone upstairs to report the fall and she got to vote, but we all felt pretty bad in our part of the line. You know, if somebody had asked me how I would have reacted to that situation before, I would have said that I would help her up and make sure she was OK. But I didn't do that...none of us did. I don't think that I was so worried about losing my place in line...I'm sure they would have let me back in. I don't think I was worried about embarrassing myself. I think I just wasn't sure what she wanted us to do. I didn't want to make a big deal out of it and cause her more embarrassment...you never know how somebody will react. I'm just disappointed in myself that my natural instinct was not to go straight to her and help her up. Shame on me.