Are You In For Our Country's Sake?

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority
except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God” (Romans 13:1).

Last night, we had the blessing of hosting a small group event for presidential candidate, Rick Santorum. It was great to see him again and to hear his heart for this country, for American families, and for the workforce, as well as his tremendous knowledge about ISIS. Given what is going on in our country and the world, it is important that each one of us take a part in what is going on in our country.

My husband sort of sprung this little shindig on me. He said it would be "just a few people and nothing too fancy." Well, hospitality is not one of my strongest gifts. It does not come naturally or stress-free for me to whip up some goodies and make the house look pretty. I know my gifts, and I try and operate within those as much as possible. However, this time, I stretched myself a bit. Given the short amount of notice (my husband likes to keep me on my toes) and time of year, we opted not to have the event catered…did I mention that hospitality is not one of my gifts?!?! What was a girl to do?
 
I got on google and googled, “fall appetizers.” And voila, lots of great recipe ideas came up. I searched for some that would make sense and be fairly easy to pull off and not have to keep warm (keeping items warm during dinner parties and events sends me into a slow panic…do not ask me why). I made my shopping list, went shopping and yesterday, I got busy in the kitchen. It was an all-day affair.
 
To be honest, I didn’t do it all by myself. I am blessed to have a wonderful friend and sister-in-Christ, Ana, that is amazing at organization and setting up for parties. I call her my “halleleujah” friend. She’s Brazilian and has the biggest heart. She helped me tremendously yesterday. 

​I also put my thirteen-year-old son to work yesterday. He’s homeschooling this year through our school’s virtual program, and we joke about the fact that many days in addition to his regular school curriculum, he’s getting real life experience. He helped set up, arrange the desserts (he’s artistic, and he made the brownies look way better than I would have!), and created fancy table cards for the food items.

​My husband also helped in a tremendous way. He picked up our younger children from school and the ice. In the final countdown before an event, I usually break into tears because of the time clock. If I had to do either of the things he helped with yesterday, it would have been messy and tear-filled at the end. He also helped because of his kind words. He is always pretty complimentary, and his encouragement for how the house looked and how the food tasted was wonderful. For a girl who can’t eat gluten who made all gluten-containing items, I couldn’t taste test any of these first-time recipes. I’m thankful he liked them (and wasn’t lying to make me feel good).

​When the whirlwind was over and all of the guests had left, I was reminded of the fact that we can’t be afraid to ask for help – I wouldn’t have made it yesterday without any of their help. Even a presidential candidate must ask for help from people to help support the costs of his campaign.
 
The event last night was a fundraiser to help Rick Santorum raise funds to help his campaign get to February 1st. It was an honor to help him with his journey. I loved that my children were able to witness that we care about our country, who is running it, and we showed them this by saying we “are in” to help the right person win this race. We can all play a part in this presidential race. If we don’t, we have no reason to complain…ever.

​Rick Santorum asked for prayer for himself, for his family (they sacrifice a lot – he’s a husband and father to seven children), for his campaign, and for all of the presidential candidates. It’s brutal, he says, but he feels that after much prayer with his wife, God has called him to the race again. He’s confident that if God wants him to be president, He will provide, but he also knows he needs to put in the work. So do we. Through our prayers, our actions, our words, and our votes we can play a part in God’s plan as well.
 
Regardless of whom you are supporting, I hope you “are in” completely for our country's sake.

**To learn more about Rick Santorum, please click HERE.