For me and millions of conservatives, the result of the 2012 presidential election was actually more shocking than 2008. It was hard for us to fathom that, after four years of Obama, the country chose to stay the course with him. 

That election night, I was actually driving back from a volleyball state tournament match (we lost) with another family, listening as the returns came in. Silence. Then, something hit me. Actually, a message I had shared with my church a year prior suddenly came flooding into my mind....

Our church was mourning the loss of our pastor who had suddenly passed away. One Sunday, my dear mom stood up and said the Lord told her we need to "bloom where we are planted." I began a Bible study on that idea based on the story of the Jewish Babylonian captivity as recorded in the Bible's book of Jeremiah. Turns out that, through Jeremiah, God instructed the Jewish to "bloom" during their time of exile. They shouldn't sulk. They shouldn't complain. They should bloom. Specifically, they should build, plant, bless and pray during exile. 

I shared this with my co-riders and in an instant the discouragement lifted. We will bloom where we are planted! We will thrive in exile! 

So I woke up the next morning, went into work early, and wrote what was probably the best and single most important email I have ever sent to the Grassfire team describing the Jeremiah story and why we must build during this season.

Apparently, the email reached Glenn Beck's desk and he proceeded to real verbatim large portions of it. And the rest, as they say, is history. But more than history, this message of "thriving" is now central to our thinking and our future here at Grassfire. That's why our revised mission is "helping America thrive." (More on this concept here.)