Go West Young Man...

I'm sitting here at work waiting for the paper to go to the press and staring at my paintings on the wall. I realize I chose them because they remind me of family vacations when I was young, as my parents always wanted to head West. They loved Colorado and New Mexico, so all of our trips were to Santa Fe, Durango, Ruidoso and towns in the Rockies.
Sigh. Good times...
I'm even staring at a beautiful picture of the Guadalupe River and remembering when we didn't live in a constant drought where there's always a burn ban, and it's hard to even go tubing for the kids, since there is so little water. So I'm asking God, is this the new norm?? And yes, we are in the worst part of the political cycle when the real crazy is unleashed, but what will it go back to on November 7th? This country is so divided that whoever loses is going to be really depressed and really angry. And if the Democrats lose, there will be civil unrest because they will make it a racial issue when nothing is further from the truth. The truth is, that most people are NOT looking at skin color, they are looking (and feeling) the pain from this terrible economy and lack of jobs. My son has been unemployed over a year, and my ex-husband for six months. My brother-in-law has been unemployed for two years, and his son can only get bartender work.
In my thought process, I'm wondering when all of this began? I guess I go back to the election in 2000 between George W. Bush and Al Gore, when it hung in the balance for weeks, with lawsuits and hanging chads and for the first time in my lifetime, an election was not decisive with results late that evening. As a matter of fact, the year 2000 was ushered in with the fear and craziness of y2k. For some reason, NO computer programmers had foreseen that a new millenium was coming, nor had included that in the timing process?? Go figure... (If I screwed up like that, I'd be fired, but I digress.)
Anyway.
Then the election afore mentioned happened, and the craziness continued. By the time the terrorism event on September 11, 2001 happened, it was clear to most that something permanently had shifted, and life as we knew it was never coming back. I've heard lots of theories on what happened, but I guess the one that makes the most sense to me, is that God has had His hand of protection over our country but is lifting it as we go deeper and deeper into sin and away from Him. There has been a slow process removing God from our schools, from our government, and from our lives. And like in the Biblical story in Sodom and Gommorah, God was going to relent if Abraham could find 10 righteous people, but he could not.
 I hope we can turn this country around. There are a lot of Christians praying now, and claiming II Chronicles 7:14 for God to relent and heal our land. There is so much hanging in the balance as there was at the election of 2000. The choice is clear -- Good or Evil.
Choose wisely...