Letter from the JCF Editor

By Marilyn Smith
Jackson Christian Family

From the window in my son and daughter-in-law’s kitchen I can look out and see an interesting mix of trees lining the streets of Old Town Alexandria. Here in the middle of March, the limbs are still bare, and, despite the warmer temperatures, the burst of color that will soon signal spring’s arrival is nowhere in sight – that is, except for one brave little Bradford Pear shouting at me from across the street. It stands there in the forefront of what looks like hundreds of stark stalk-like branches reaching their spindly arms toward a bleak gray sky. This brave little tree refuses to look shriveled and dead like its neighbors. Instead, it is doing exactly what it was created to do – bloom. Its branches laden with fluffy white blossoms stretch toward the heavens sending the message loud and clear that Old Man Winter is losing its grip on the Washington, D.C. area. Despite what it sees around itself, it has chosen to celebrate life.

There is life inside this house as well, as Miss Mary McAllister Smith approaches the jolly old age of one. As always, I’ve over-enjoyed my baby-sitting responsibilities. By tomorrow afternoon when my plane lands in Jackson, I will be feeling the effects of one too many “Hokey-Pokey” antics. My joints will remind me that I am not as young as I like to pretend. Even so, I will be looking forward to the next time we are together – because there will be a next time. And it will be, as this time, a celebration. No matter what else is happening in my private world or on the front page of the daily news, Allie’s daily discoveries open the eyes of my heart to life as though I am seeing everything for the first time.

On this regular and seemingly ordinary morning, between the courageous little Bradford Pear’s loud message and the very wiggly and alive Miss Allie Smith, I began to think of Easter – and of God’s proclivity to send the most interesting messengers to remind us of the basics of our faith. I took one look at that tree and remembered that day follows night, spring follows winter, and that despite the seeming enormity of whatever tough thing any one of us may face at the moment - fears, uncertainties, or despair over very bad news - He is the same God who healed the blind, cured the leper, and raised the dead. He definitely has a big preference for “life – abundantly.” (John 10:10).

It takes just one glimpse of the outstretched arms and a splintered wooden cross to convince me that there is no price so great that God would not be willing it pay it that you and I might experience life…with meaning and abundance. And just one look at the empty tomb reminds every one of us that no matter what impossible road we travel today or tomorrow, the victory is sure and the battle is won. The Resurrection tells us once and for all that there are truly no impossible situations when God is in charge of the story.

Marylin H. Smith is Editor of Jackson Christian Family Magazine.

April 1, 2006
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