National Pride

The Olympic Games are a chance for americans to show their american pride, chinese to show their chinese pride etc... When the national anthem is played, what do you think? Do you think, "not that song again." or "how fortunate we are to live in a country where we can worship God freely." For my piano lessons I had to play the national anthem and at the end there was a big fortissimo... the part where you get the loudest... and my piano teacher told me that I shouldn't back down at the end of the song. This was my chance to show my pride in America. I played it again with pride, thinking how fortunate I was to live here. My piano instructor told me that teens today think that it is not good to have pride in their country. Even the smallest countries in the world have pride in their national anthem. Do you ever think about how people are killed for their faith? I read in Do Hard Things that a girl was shot through the head for not spitting on the bible. Can you imagine the thoughts that ran through her head when she refused them? She probably though, "if I spit on the Bible then all of this will be over, they probably won't kill me. But if I don't spit on the Bible then I will go home to Jesus. How wonderful that would be!..." Her pride in the eternal country was the reason she stood there and firmly refused.