More Than Fireworks: What America's 250th Means to Us

After living abroad, traveling the world, and seeing how other nations remember their history, this anniversary feels different.

It is not simply about fireworks, flags, parades, or patriotic music.

It is about memory.

It is about family.

It is about the people who served a country that was still becoming what it promised to be.

Living in Panama has given us another perspective on national pride. Every November, the country celebrates its independence from Spain and later from Colombia. Schools close. Businesses pause. Streets fill with marching bands, flags, parades, and families celebrating together. It is impossible not to admire the pride Panamanians have for their country.

Watching those celebrations often takes me back to my own childhood.

Every Fourth of July, my father decorated our yard with dozens of American flags. As I grew older, that became my job. Our home sat just down the street from the local high school, where the annual fireworks display lit up the night sky. We didn't have to leave the neighborhood—we simply carried our lawn chairs into the front yard and watched.

The smell of hamburgers and hot dogs drifted through the neighborhood. Children laughed. Neighbors gathered outside. Every year the fireworks seemed bigger, brighter, and more spectacular than the year before.

Looking back, I realize we weren't simply watching fireworks.

We were celebrating America.

Only recently have I begun asking myself why that celebration meant so much to my family.

Through genealogy, I discovered that our family's story reaches back to the Revolutionary War. Research suggests that Emmanuel, William, and John Driver—men connected to my family line—served during America's fight for independence. (You can read more about that journey in my earlier blog, They Served in the Revolutionary War: The Drivers.)

I don't know whether my parents knew those names or understood our family's possible connection to the Revolutionary War. I suspect they didn't.

But somehow, a love for this country had already been passed from one generation to the next.

It was almost as if patriotism had become part of our family's DNA.

Learning about those Revolutionary War connections is simply the icing on the cake.

My family is only one small thread in a much larger American story.

Millions of men and women—Black, White, Native American, Hispanic, Asian, immigrants, and citizens born here—have answered the call to serve this nation. Some returned home. Others never did.

Whenever I think about that sacrifice, my mind goes to John 15:13:

"Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends."

Whether applied to military service or simply to a life lived sacrificially for others, those words remind me that freedom has always come at a cost.

So, what does America's 250th anniversary mean to me?

It reminds me that my family's story stretches from the painful realities of kidnapping, enslavement, discrimination, and racism to opportunities my ancestors could scarcely have imagined.

It reminds me that generations before me endured hardships so that generations after them—including me—could live with greater freedom.

It reminds me that America has never been perfect.

No nation built by imperfect people ever will be.

But it has also been a place where each generation has had the opportunity to make it better than the one before.

This July, as Tamara and I return home after living abroad and traveling the world, I know I'll see America differently.

I'll think about my father placing those flags in our yard.

I'll think about the Revolutionary War soldiers who may have shared my surname.

I'll think about the countless Americans whose names history books never mention but whose sacrifices helped build this country.

And as the fireworks light up the sky once again, I'll celebrate—not because America has achieved perfection, but because its story continues.

I'll celebrate with gratitude.

I'll celebrate with hope.

And I'll pray that future generations will experience even greater freedom, opportunity, and unity than those who came before us.

This is only the beginning of our journey.

In Part Two, we'll share what it was like to experience America's 250th anniversary firsthand and reflect on what we learned by coming home.

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