Last Saturday morning we got up early and made our way to the 8/28 Restoring Honor rally on the national mall in Washington DC. We went to the rally expecting a move of God and expecting a miracle. When we arrived at our subway stop and made our way to the rally we were amazed at the number of people, and were a little surprised at the small number of protestor there were. As we made our way toward the Washington memorial the crowds seemed energized, and then we reached a point where we could see the Lincoln memorial and the size of the crowd that was there, it was amazing. The only way that CBS could report that 87,000 people were there is if they were counting the overflow that was sitting around the Washington monument and thought the other people were with a different group, or maybe there is another reason they would report something so blatantly absurd. We made our way into the crowd and moved along until we found a place where we could see a screen and hear the sound clearly, we stayed there for 10-15 minutes and then moved a to the next screen and repeated this a couple times until we were close enough to see the speakers on the stage (steps really). All the moving around we did required us to move amongst a lot of people and we covered a lot of ground and not once did I hear a person complain about anything, or say anything that was other than polite and helpful. There were plenty of opportunities to complain if people wanted to, it was hot with not much of a breeze, there were lines at the port-o-johns, the crowd was so thick at times you were packed in tight to get through some areas, lots of people could not see the stage or a video screen, but none of that seemed to matter. These people came to see a move of God, they came looking to witness Faith Hope and Charity, and I will say that I witnessed an overflowing of all three. The overwhelming message for each individual was that God is the only answer to all of your individual problems and to all of the problems that we face as a nation, I was reminded of the scripture “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land”. Over and over again the speakers cried out to Jesus and called on His name, they didn’t use a generic “god” to be politically correct, and every time they called on Jesus the crowd responded. This was another opportunity to hear someone grumble about being at a big “church service”, but if there were any around who did not approve of the message they kept it to themselves.
It was very moving to see the video clips of Dr. Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream speech’, and even more so to see the overwhelming reaction of the crowd when his niece, Alveda King, spoke. The most amazing part of Alveda King speaking is that she spoke with treats against her and her family from groups that did not want her to be there. Glenn Beck said on his radio show that she was visibly shaken, and that he told her he could get her a bullet proof vest if she wanted, but her response was, “No, I trust in the Lord”. What kind of courage does it take to go on a stage in front of more than 500,000 people when your life has been threatened and all the so called civil rights leaders have said that they expect people to boo her. To me that is amazing.
This day was also a day to honor the heroes that are more commonly known as members of the United States military, it was a time to thank the men and women that have served and are now serving. There was no better place to honor our military, we were surrounded by memorials to almost every war this nation has been involved in, and there were several times that the Vietnam war was mentioned in particular and the fact that those men were not welcomed home after the war, but I believe that there was healing for those veterans who were in attendance, I believe that they were ministered to by the moving of the Holy Spirit. One of the stated purpose of this event was to raise money for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, a foundation that takes care of the families of special forces personnel that make the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms, they received over 5 million dollars.
After the event was over we made our way to the Lincoln memorial, and then walked over to the White House. We ate lunch at the White House, it may have been out on the sidewalk but we still were at the White House. After lunch we started making our way back to the subway station and this is where we encountered the Al Sharpton’s protest march. This march could not have been more different from the Restoring Honor rally, my first impression was that the march was like a union strike line, with angry people yelling and chanting. To see this march was heart breaking, all of these people that claimed to be reclaiming Dr. Kings dream had just missed it, and they had just missed being part of it, all because someone told them that we were a bunch of racist. To me this was the perfect opportunity for the civil rights leaders to encourage people of all races and religions and nationalities to go be a part of the rally and make Glenn Beck prove what he had been saying. If they really wanted to prove that Glenn Beck and everyone at the rally were racist then what better way than to come and join, there was more than enough security if they feared for their safety. Instead, the ones who wanted to reclaim the dream missed seeing hundreds of thousands of people honor Dr. King and his niece, as well as others that marched with Dr. King that spoke at the rally. Glenn Beck told of a story on his radio show of a woman and her daughter that attended the rally and on the flight home sat next to a man wearing an Obama t-shirt, in talking with the man they found out that he had gone the Washington to attend Al Sharpton’s protest, but he said that he wanted to see what all the fuss was about and know what he would be protesting so he went to the Restoring Honor rally …. He never made it to the protest, that is the greatest endorsement I can think of, I only wish more could have gone to see what they were going to protest, I think that would have been a dream fulfilled.
