I voted today, because it’s such a privilege. Then I determined I wasn’t going to watch the election coverage, because I just can’t take it. We’ve even got turmoil here in my hometown with our mayoral election, which is a huge mess because the guy who won can’t be certified as mayor because he didn’t turn in all his paperwork on time. So even though he won the majority of votes, he’s out of luck. I understand he didn’t follow the rules, and while I hate it for him, I understand that it’s fair for him to bear the consequences. What I’m not OK with is that the new city council was deemed to have the right to choose one of its members to serve as mayor. I didn’t vote for any of them for mayor, nor did any of the other residents here. It’s a huge mess, and I don’t think anyone is going to be happy with anything unless we all just get to vote again, but I don’t see that happening. So the next 4 years are going to be strange ones locally, and now it looks like they’ll be the same nationally as well.

Obviously I’m a Republican and I voted for McCain/Palin. I am bummed about Obama winning, not because of his race–that wasn’t even a factor for me. I heard so many people talking about Palin’s lack of experience and that she was just too much of a gamble, but to me, Obama was the bigger gamble, because he seemed to be trying to be all things to all people, saying whatever he thought they wanted to hear. I deal with that with my dad, and I don’t think I can say clearly enough that I hate it. It’s lying, flat out. Since the beginning of the campaign, every time I thought of Obama, I thought of MGM Studios at Disney World. When you walk into the park, it looks like you’re in New York City. As you walk down the streets, the buildings look like the ones in the Big Apple. It even sounds like the Big Apple. But behind all that, it’s empty.

Obama made some great speeches and got everyone all excited. So excited that they ignored any information that portrayed him in any kind of negative light at all. “Change!” they cried. “We want change!” Well, now we’ve got it, and now we’ll see if he’s really NYC or just MGM.

When I saw online that McCain had conceded the election to Obama, I thought of the Karen Blixen quote from Out of Africa: “When the gods want to punish you, they answer your prayers.”

I believe in the One, True God—not gods. And I believe that God is loving, not hateful and punishing. And I also know that when His creation chooses something other than Him, He will let them. He did it when the Israelites wanted a king, and that surely didn’t turn out all that great.

I don’t mean to say that McCain is all good and Obama is all bad. Nothing is ever all one or the other. We are all flawed, sinful, broken. I pray that Obama’s Christian faith is real, although I question it when I see some of the things he supports that seem so against what love and faith stand for.

In the last couple of presidential elections, at least, the outcome has teetered right at the top of the fulcrum and could have gone either way, but tilted just barely toward the more conservative side. It was just a matter of time, really, till it tilted the other way. I just wonder if most people really knew what kind of change they wanted. Did they have specifics for what they haven’t liked, and is it really the Republicans fault? Or did it all just sound good because it was different and therefore it had to be better? I guess we’ll see.

This was not my prayer, but it is now reality. May God’s truth prevail in the hearts of men, no matter what and no matter where—whether it’s NYC or MGM.