Many times in music it is not about how well the note was hit or how high it went but the inflection on a word or line. When Natalie Grant hits the line in the Star Bangled Banner about our flag still being there it is the way she says it, not the way she hits the note so perfectly. She reminds us in that one line by singing it like it is a gospel song that no matter what hits our country, no matter the division, confusion, bitterness, and hate, our flag and what it represents is still there. It represents freedom and unity among all people and even when we fail to reach those goals we keep fighting, we keep trying and we reach it more times than we realize.

The media’s version of our country right now is dark, nasty, stinky, and full of hatred, but at the foundation of our country are its’ people who look beyond what we are being told we are and instead show time after time that we are a country founded on the principals of our Heavenly Father, on love for all people of all ethnicities, on free will like that which God gave us.

Our country falls short often but what is never lost is the fight to keep working to improve ourselves, the fight to remember and strive toward what the founding fathers always hoped it would be. Each time I hear Natalie sing that line I break down because no matter what tries to hide the good that is in this country, our flag rises above, still waving, still reminding us that we are better together, better when we remember that the one thing that unites is that we are all Americans, living in one of the greatest countries of the world. May we never forget the good, even when the bad swirls all around us.