Tag: War for Independence

Aspire to The Heavens: Mount Vernon Love Story

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Their love story begins simply but has the makings of a fairy tale. She is a widow with two young children. He is somewhat of a military legend. She shows interest in what is dear to his heart, his home Mount Vernon. He wins the hearts of her son and daughter.

A fairy tale would end there with a “happily ever after”. But their story isn’t make believe.

This is just a taste of Mount Vernon Love Story – A Novel of George and Martha Washington. Within its pages, Mary Higgins Clark presents a personal view of America’s first President and first First Lady. She shares their struggles and heartaches. Whether the story strictly follows the record of history is a subject for further study, but if you read it, you will have the chance to get to know these more distant figures as well as you might know close friends.

You’ll also find that their story illustrates two interesting points.

1) No matter how much two people love each other, they can never love each other perfectly. No matter how well suited two mortals are to each other, they will never be able to meet all the other’s needs nor fulfill all their dreams. 

See, loving perfectly and meeting every desire are God-sized jobs. And, well, God-sized jobs are just too big for mere men and women. Even if those men and women stand among the “greats” of history.

2) As life goes through seasons, so does love, and growing love through those seasons can take intentional effort. For George and Martha in Mount Vernon Love Story, the War for Independence and a personal grief could tear them apart, but they each come to heart-deep realizations and take action. That season gives them the depth they need to lead a nation. 

In I Corinthians 13, we find God’s standard for love. Just like George and Martha, we can’t obtain it for ourselves. But we can look to Jesus, the One Who seeks to lavish it on us, and, as the motto of George’s mother’s family said, “Aspire to the heavens”. 

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends…” – 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (ESV)

Note: This book doesn’t make it onto the “favorites” list for a reason or two, but was worth sharing because of the above points. 

Stepping into the Story: The Williamsburg Years

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At long last, I stepped through the doorway. Even though the inside of the Colonial Williamsburg apothecary shop didn’t look quite how I’d pictured it, my heart leapt as my eyes swept up the details. Above the counter were the jars of medicinal elements. No wonder Thomas Hutchinson felt overwhelmed in The Rebel on his first day as the apothecary’s apprentice! I felt as if I had spent hours in this place even though I’d never set foot in it until this moment. That’s the beauty of books…and I had just stepped into one of my favorites!

With rich details and fast-paced adventures, Nancy Rue brought Colonial Williamsburg all the way to eleven-year-old me in Guatemala via her series The Williamsburg Years. Of course, literary license and the fact that today’s Colonial Williamsburg bounces around in the Revolutionary-War era meant that not everything was as I wanted it to be when I visited today’s Williamsburg. Wouldn’t it have been fun if old Mr. Pickering really were behind the counter of the apothecary shop? Still, whether I was listening to George Washington, strolling up to the Governor’s Palace, nibbling ginger cookies or riding in a carriage, Thomas Hutchinson’s adventures were spread over my experiences like the chocolate sauce on my peppermint stick ice cream at the King’s Arms Tavern.

Like the young United States, Thomas Hutchinson has a lot of growing up to do in The Williamsburg Years. In fact, you may not like him very much when you first meet. On the other hand, you may understand why he feels like he might as well not even bother trying to live up to his two “perfect” older brothers. No matter how you see him at first, you’ll find that he’s changed by 1783. How could it be otherwise when he’s learned to love learning from Alexander Taylor, spent three years as Mr. Pickering’s apprentice, become like a brother to indentured servants Malcolm and Patsy, trained as the right hand of Dr. Nicholas Quincy, witnessed Tarletan’s raids on the Hutchinson plantation, and watched one brother leave to fight for liberty and the other to become a minister? (Not bad for a thirteen-year-old, right?) Yet, with all the progress he’s made, as the battle of Yorktown fills the Williamsburg air with explosions and the Governor’s Palace with wounded soldiers, Thomas still has plenty of his own battles to fight. There’s the issue of Malcolm wanting to join the army more than anything while Thomas can’t stand the thought of sending off another brother. Then there’s Dr. Quincy, who has risked the ire of hot-headed Patriots to follow his Quaker beliefs and is now risking everything to save lives on the battlefront. And what will the Patriot victory at Yorktown mean for Thomas’s best friend, Caroline Taylor, who has a melon-slice smile and a Loyalist family? Maybe you can join the adventure and find out for yourself!

I think one of the many truths Thomas learns as the new United States gains her freedom is what it means to be really free. After the battle of Yorktown brings the war mostly to a close, Thomas’s father shares a few thoughts with him.

When they reached the end of the Green, the bells in Bruton Parish Church were ringing joyfully and people were rushing back and forth across the Market Square in their best clothes, ready to go to the surrender ceremony. Papa watched them for a moment before he spoke. 

“I feel no need to go to Yorktown today,” he said. “For me, the war has been fought right here.” He put his hand on his chest. “Right inside ourselves.”

Thomas felt his brow puckering. “I don’t understand.”

“You have fought your own battles during this war, Thomas,” Papa said. “Right there in your own soul. I think you’ve come through it all feeling God’s hand.”

I have felt God’s hand, Thomas thought as he looked out over the Duke of Gloucester Street…

Papa touched Thomas’s shoulder. “I am proud to say, son, that you’ve joined God’s side, and you’re winning that war inside yourself. Do you know what that makes you, Thomas?”

Thomas shook his head and looked where his father was pointing. On the roof of the Courthouse, the new flag flapped proudly in the wind, brilliantly red, white and blue against the October sky.

“It makes you free, son,” Papa said. “No matter what you may have to suffer, you will always be free.”[1]

What do you think? What does it really mean to be free? This post brings to a close my miniseries on the War for Independence. However, there’s so much more to learn! While The Williamsburg Years are no longer in print, you can still find copies on eBay and Amazon. Then you can visit Colonial Williamsburg online. If you ever get a chance to visit in person, the peppermint stick ice cream at the King’s Arms Tavern really is the very best! Step into the story today.

 

[1] Nancy Rue, The Battle, The Williamsburg Years, no. 6 (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1997), 187-188.

Without Hindsight: History in the Present

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As I’ve looked at history, I think I’ve sometimes viewed the characters as if they knew their actions’ outcomes. It was all fine and well for the Patriots to be so brave. They must have felt very sure of themselves. Of course they were going to win! How could anyone have wanted to give up?

But they didn’t know the end of their story. They were like I am in 2015, in the middle of the adventure and wondering what might happen next. Are we doing right? Is there any way we’ll win? Or will we be relegated to the failures of history? Is it going to be worth the cost?

And they had reason to wonder. By the winter of 1776, not even six months after the Declaration of Independence was signed, George Washington’s Patriots were underfed, shoeless, unpaid, and suffering sickness and defeats. Since they didn’t know what was coming, 2,000 of them left when their enlistment expired. [1] Even before that show of hopelessness, Washington wrote to his cousin,

“In confidence, I tell you that I never was in such an unhappy, divided state since I was born.” [2]

Yes, these were days to “try men’s souls” as Thomas Paine put it. [3] The realities remind us that the War for Independence wasn’t glamorous. The men who fought in it weren’t given messages from heaven saying that they were going to be famous someday. They struggled with decisions, made mistakes and had to face them, and needed to confide their feelings to friends.

Somehow this knowledge comforts me as I live within my own life’s tale. While it’s true that as a Christian I know I can look forward to a “joyfully ever-after”, I don’t know when that’s coming or what lies between now and then. Somedays I think, I don’t know what tomorrow holds; how can I possibly make life-altering decisions? 

Let’s face it. Life gets complicated and hard sometimes. That sure wouldn’t be news to George Washington! And yet, he and a (comparative) handful of others pressed on. For some reason, God chose to suddenly bless their efforts – with their crossing the Delaware and surprise attack on Trenton on December 25, 1776, for example – and here I am over two-hundred years later with gratitude for that.

Here’s another thought I’ve pondered: If you’re going to be a soldier who sticks with it, you’d hope your cause would be worth it, wouldn’t you? For me, that’s where listening to God comes in. As the “Author of life” (Acts 3:15, ESV), Jesus knows the end of the story. I think that’s a good reason to rely “on the protection of divine Providence” like the signers of the Declaration of Independence said they did. [4]

So I press on – praying, reading, watching, listening, working, waiting for God’s directing hand. What might happen if we’re not “sunshine patriots” or “summer soldiers” [5] who give up when life gets hard? Maybe we won’t have history-shaking victories. But at least generations to come could look back and say, “They didn’t give up. They persevered in something eternally worthwhile. They set an example for us. Let’s live up to it.”

 

1 David McCullough, 1776: The Illustrated Edition, pg. 197.

2 David McCullough, 1776: The Illustrated Edition, pg. 191.

3 Thomas Paine, “The American Crisis” http://www.ushistory.org/paine/crisis/c-01.htm (accessed 9 July 2015).

4 “The Declaration of Independence” http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html (accessed 9 July 2015).

5 Thomas Paine, “The American Crisis” http://www.ushistory.org/paine/crisis/c-01.htm (accessed 9 July 2015).