Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro’ the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro’ the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their lov’d homes and the war’s desolation;
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land
Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause 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!
In 1814, Francis Scott Key wrote the poem, Defense of Fort McHenry. The poem was later put to the tune of (John Stafford Smith’s song) The Anacreontic Song, modified somewhat, and retitled The Star Spangled Banner. Congress proclaimed The Star Spangled Banner the U.S. National Anthem in 1931.
Live life so well that, even if you die, the empty seats behind you will tell the story that, “yea, this soul did what God sent him/her to do”. Give life and hope into your family, village, community, country, continent and the world at large. ”
― Israelmore Ayivor, The Great Hand Book of Quotes
Tiny hands, sent from heaven above
Coming to redeem me with your gift of love
Growing hands, clapping with delight,
Learning family love, obeying day and night.
Praying hands, worshiping one Lord,
Wise among the elders, honoring God’s Word.
Inviting hands, calling twelve to you,
Showing them your Father, hoping they stay true .
Healing hands, mending weary souls,
Touching broken bodies, making sinners whole.
Searching hands, reaching to the lost,
Seeking to redeem them at any cost.
Bleeding hands, ‘neath a heavy load,
Gripping splintered beam on that winding road.
Hated hands, rejected and despised,
Lifted up for mercy as alone you cried.
Helpless hands, surrendered to the cross,
Man’s only hope suspended in final, tragic loss.
Then you shouted: “I T I S F I N I S H E D !”
Silent hands, buried in a tomb,
Waiting for the morning, shrouded in the gloom.
Living hands, forever scarred by love,
Lifting my petitions to mighty God above.
Open hands, still waiting to receive
Each repentant sinner who in faith believes.
“I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE,
HE WHO COMES TO ME
I WILL IN NO WAY CAST OUT.”
Poem by Connie Faust