Thank You, Mr. President

Dear President Bush,

Today is your last full day in office. Where have the last 8 years gone? Though I am quite positive that you will never read, see or ever even hear about this blog post, I still felt compelled to write it in order to publicly express my thanks to you for your last 8 years of leadership to our country.

I will never forget where I was on September 11, 2001 when I first heard word of the events of that horrific day. I was pastoring the Osceola Grace Brethren Church in Osceola, Indiana and had just settled into my office for another day of study and meetings when my wife called me with the news that a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers in New York. The thought of this being a terrorist attack was the furthest thing from my mind at the time. I went into one of the classrooms in the church that had a television and turned it on just in time to see the second plane explode into the other tower. It was at this point that it became obvious that our country was under attack.

Over the next couple of hours I watched the horrors taking place as a third plane crashed into the Pentagon and as both towers in New York fell to the ground killing so many innocent lives. Over the hours, days and weeks that followed that fateful day it was your leadership that kept our nation united and strong. From that day on you took the security of our entire nation upon your shoulders and resolved that no subsequent attack would occur under your watch. It has now been over 7 years since that attack, and there has not been one additional terrorist attack on American soil since that day. There is no question that your leadership is the main reason for that and for that I am truly thankful.

Thank you for standing on principle and not public pressure in taking the war against terror overseas so that we would not have to fight it here at home. I realize that over time this decision became very unpopular and ate away at your approval ratings, but even among all the negative pressure, you stood by your convictions. I admire you for that and I believe that over the course of time, history will prove that your decision to overthrow the regime in Iraq was the right course of action.

Thank you even in the final days of your administration for standing strongly behind Israel as they went on the offensive in the Gaza Strip to protect themselves from the Hamas radicals. But Most of all, thank you for being a man of faith who was never afraid to verbalize your faith in God even as the leader of the free world. For me, that was always very encouraging and very inspiring.

So tomorrow you will leave 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and I’m sure that there will be many demeaning words directed your way as you do. But I wanted you to know that there is one citizen, one pastor in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania that has appreciated your leadership these past 8 years and who wishes you the best in the years to come.