I’m not really sure what I should say about this day. I have looked forward to it for as long as I have known the importance of voting. I even wrote a speech on our rights once, presented it to the American Legion on three separate occasions. I grew up with a love for this country, for the principles it stood for, for the freedom bought and the opportunities realized. I grew up with a love and respect that my great grandfather had when he came here, that he passed onto his son, him to my mother, and she to me. I was raised to be proud that I could be an American, and I was raised to value my right to vote. My freedom to choose. But we as a nation have neglected our duties in the past ten, twenty, fifty years. We do not know what a right is. We do not value the freedoms we have. We do not know the importance of the struggles we overcame to reach this point in history. We do not know how to recognize and move past our grievous to build something our ancestors only dreamed of and were thankful for. We forgot the God who has blessed us here.

So today I go to the voting booth for the first time for a presidential election, and I feel ashamed of my country. I have actually come to the point of tears multiple times today, thinking about where we have come from, where we are, and where we might be headed. And I have felt ashamed that we forgot what character, nobility, righteousness, and truth is. Dare I say was? We are in a world now where these things are either relative or irrelevant in the minds of many. And I am ashamed. I am ashamed that my country thinks it acceptable to kill their offspring, that a murderer is fitting for office, that division is more valuable than E Plurbis Unum. I am about to finish my shift and drive to the voting booth. And I am going to vote. It is my right as a citizen and my duty as an American. But I do not look on this day with pride. Because no matter what the outcome of this day, it will mark the end of a season of shame in america. I can only hope and pray that it does not mark the beginning of another one, or worse, the start of an America that would make our forefathers roll over in their graves. With what contempt have we treated the sacrifice of all those in our history that have fought for freedom.  
My prayer for this election is that God’s will be done, and that He may have mercy on us, for we have sincerely shown contempt for it. For, at the end of all this, our greatest crime, America, is that we have shunned Him. Pray that He has mercy on us, for we are surely doomed without it.
May God bless you this night,

~Rose