Heard the story behind the Star-Spangled Banner. I was deeply moved. Thought I’d share:

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We had founding fathers who knew how to pray. There was a lawyer once and his name was Francis Scott Key. He penned the song that we all now know as “the Star spangled banner”.

We’ve heard the song so many times that we kind of at least halfway know the words. But we don’t even realize what we’re singing. Maybe you memorized it when you were little. Let me tell you quickly the story about a man named Francis Scott Key, who was a lawyer in Baltimore.

The colonies, the American colonies, were engaged in vicious conflict with Great Britain. The American colonies were wanting to break free from the power of the king and to start their own nation. And in this conflict both sides had accumulated prisoners of war. The American colonies had prisoners and the British had American prisoners. The American government initiated this move, that they went to the British and said to the British “Let’s negotiate for the release of these prisoners”. And so America said, “We are going to send a man out to you to discuss this deal with you”. They were holding the American prisoners in boats about a thousand yards offshore. And they said, “this man that we’re going to send to you, his name is Francis Scott Key and he’s going to come out and he’s going to negotiate with you to see if we can make a deal that consists of a mutual exchange”.

So, on the appointed day Francis Scott Key went out on his rowboat to negotiate with the British officials and they reached a conclusion that men could be exchanged on a one-for-one basis. Now Francis Scott Key was so happy he felt like he had been successful, he went down below in the second deck of the boats and what he found was a cargo boat full of humanity. And he said to the American prisoners in the bottom of the boat, “Men I’ve got good news for you tonight, you’re free”.

He said, “Tonight I have successfully negotiated for you to come back to the colonies”. He said, “you’ll be taken out of this boat, out of this filth, out of these chains…..” and then he went back on board on the top deck to arrange for their passage to the shore and the admiral came, the British admiral, came and he said “we got a slight problem”. “We’ll hold to our commitment to release these men, but it’ll be merely academic after tonight. It won’t matter”.

Francis Scott Key said, “Well what do you mean?”. He said, “Well Mr. Key, tonight we have laid an ultimatum upon the colonies. Your people will either capitulate and lay down the colors of that flag that you all think so highly of. You see that fort right over there, Fort Henry?” He said, “We’re going to blow it off of the face of the earth”.

He said, “How are you going to do that, why are you going to do that?” He said, “look out”. He told Francis Scott Key “Look and scan the horizon you’ll see hundreds of little dots”, he said “that’s the entire British war fleet”. He said, “all of the gunpower and the ammunition is being called upon to demolish that fort and it will be here within striking distance in a matter of about two and a half hours”.

Francis Scott Key said, “You can’t shell that fort. That fort is not just a traditional military fort, it is full of women and children. It is not predominantly a military fort”. He said, “don’t worry about it. We’ve left them a way out”. He tells Francis Scott Key, he said, “Do you see that flag way up there on the rampart?” He said, “we told them that if they’ll lower that flag at any given point the shelling will immediately stop and we’ll know that they’ve surrendered, and you’ll be under British rule”.

Francis Scott Key went down below and told the men what was about to happen. They asked “How many ships and he replied hundreds of ships. He went back on top and shouted down to the men, “I’ll tell you what happens as they fire on Fort Henry, I’ll look and report back down to you all in the lower deck what I see happen on land”.

As the twilight begin to fall a haze hung over the ocean at sunset. Suddenly, the British war fleet unleashed. He said, “the sound was deafening. There were so many guns and there was no relief”.
He said, “it was absolutely impossible to talk”. And suddenly the sky, although remained dark, suddenly lit paces from down below. He could hear the men, the prisoners, saying, “What have we done! Is the flag still flying over the rampart?”.

“Tell us, what do you see Mr. Key?”

One hour passed, two hours, three hours into the shelling. Every time a bomb would explode, it would be close to that flag and they could see the flag in the illuminated red glare of that bomb. And Francis Scott Key would report down to the men, “It’s still up! It’s still up, it’s not down”.

The admiral came down and he said, “Your people are absolutely insane”. He said, “What’s the matter with them, don’t they understand this is an impossible situation?” Francis Scott Key said, “He remembered what George Washington had said. He said, the thing that sets the American Christian apart from all other people in the world, is he will die on his feet before he’ll live on his knees”.

The admiral said, “we’ve now instructed all of the guns to focus right on that rampart to take that flag down as a a sign that we’ve won”. He said, “we don’t understand something our reconnaissance tells us that flag has been directly hit again and again and again, and somehow, it’s still flying. We can’t understand it. We’re about to bring every gun we have.” And for the next three hours they boarded down on that point.

Francis Scott Key said that the barage was unmerciful and all he could hear was the men down below pray, “God keep that flag flying . God keep that flag flying where we last saw it”.

Sunrise came. He said there was a heavy mist hanging over the land and the rampart was tall enough. It stood there and that flag looked completely non-descript. The flag was in shreds and the flag pole itself was in a weird angle, but the flag was still at the top and Francis Scott Key went aboard and immediately went into Fort Henry to see what had happened and he found what had happened.

That flag had been held up, had suffered repetitious direct hits and when it would be hit it fell to the ground. One of the men or one of the fathers who knew what it meant when the flag touched the ground, although knowing that all of the British guns rained on it would walk over and hold up that flag humanely until they died.

Their bodies were removed and others took their place. Francis Scott Key said what held that flag pole in place at that unusual angle were the bodies of patriots. Stacked together. Making sure that flag didn’t hit the ground. From that experience he wrote this song”

Star Spangled Banner:

“O say, can you see,
By the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed
At the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars,
Through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched,
Were so gallantly streaming,
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air
Gave proof through the night
That our flag was still there,
O say, does that
Stars spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land and of the free
And the home of the brave.

***End

15 years ago when I first stepped on the US soil, I thought that we would perhaps be here for 2-3 years and go back home to India. For the first 8 years of our married life, I always debated with Jeev as to how India would be a better place to settle in.

One afternoon I was on the highway going somewhere. I know the exact place and the moment the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, “I have brought you to this land for a purpose. ” That changed my mindset in just a moment!

I am not born American. But the love that God has placed in my heart for this nation is beyond my own comprehension!

This nation which was once exalted by the hand of God, is forcefully being brought down by enemies from within and without. Everytime I almost want to give up praying seeing the current trend of the nation, the still small voice always comes…. to not give up praying for this land.

I have always wondered what difference could one persons prayers make, when the floods of ungodliness has taken over the land. But every time that thought comes in, the Holy Spirit always reminds me that all the difference that came about in the scriptures was because of just ONE person.

IT was ONE Abraham, it was ONE David, it was ONE Gideon, it was ONE PETER and it was ONE Paul. Indeed, OUR PRAYERS CAN ABSOLUTELY MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

“look to Abraham, your father,
    and to Sarah, who gave you birth.
When I called him he was only one man,
    and I blessed him and made him many.” Isaiah 51:2

A picture of the original Star-spangled banner

Blessed month ahead!