World Views...and some random thoughts

I was just thinking about how so few people know much about what happened in the southern half of the colonies during America's War for Independence.

It is a pity that an American child should think that the only important cities during that time were Boston and Concord. The Boston tea party and the march to Concord certainly have their place in our history, but there were 13 colonies involved in the fight!

In the past two years I have had a growing interest in the southern involvement with the War for Independence - particularly Virginia and North Carolina's part in it all. Through my research, I have discovered amazing, wondrous, thrilling accounts that testify to God's hand working through many incidents that occurred in Virginia and North Carolina - and in Tennessee and Kentucky land too, though they were not states yet.

I am sitting here, staring at the computer screen, wondering where to begin, and how to say all I am thinking. I suppose I shall have to consider this post as an introductary one, and give out little bits of information as I have time. For the present, let me encourage all my readers to research and read for themselves.

I suppose I should mention that I was homeschooled through all the grades. This gave me the wonderful advantage of being able to spend a ton of time researching topics that were of special interest to me - though I suppose any determined student could do that if he had a mind to. I spent a good deal of my last year in school studying history of the Revolution era.

I consider history one of the most important subjects under the sun because... how can we know where we're going if we don't know from where we've come?

How can we learn from the mistakes our ancestors made if we don't know what they were?

How can we chart our course if we don't know what works and what fails?

How can we properly praise God for His guiding hand if we don't see what He has done?

How can we see what will be if we don't know what has been?

How can we hold forth the Bible as trustworthy when we can't show people how the prophesies have been fulfilled?


I think a life that is out of touch with the past would be a life with a very warped view of the present. Of course, our forefathers don't hold the answer for everything; they were sinners too. But they can certainly teach us quite a bit, and if we balance what we see in history with what we see in the present and, most importantly, what we see in the Bible, I believe we will have very clear views of the world.