Renewal and Thoughts of Easter

“We shall rise from mortal death to have life everlasting, because of the atoning sacrifice and resurrection of the Savior.”

My dad with his mother, my Grandma Hall.

Easter Bonnets:  In first grade, the teacher set out crepe paper, cardboard, crayons, and scissors.  With her help and the help of a teacher's aide, we made our hats and adorned them with bows and thought them beautiful.  I'm not sure what the boys did; maybe they got to make Easter baskets?  I love the idea of an Easter Parade, a show of hope and celebration.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_bonnet)

Hot Cross Buns:  I left home at the age of 17.  During those first years away, responsible for setting up my own household, I begin to experiment with recipes and cooking.  I read magazines and became inspired and educated by the presentation of food on Easter.  I had never heard of hot-cross buns.  I knew about Ham, Potato Salad; I had grown up with that fare.  I determined to add making the yeast buns to Easter Dinner preparations.  (http://people.com/food/best-easter-hot-cross-buns-recipe/)

Easter Chicks:  I'm not sure that I understood the spiritual significance or connected the significance of little new-born chicks at Easter.  They had been dyed different colors and were furry and warm and chirping a lot.  I don't remember what we did with them after Easter.  We didn't live on a farm, really, though Mother did raise chickens for a while.  We had a garden, too, in the Spring.  I remember a summer of picking beans.  The rows had been criss-crossed, so that we could pick in the shady tunnels, from the inside.

As a young child, I may not have realized the significance of all the trappings of Easter, but as I grew older, I began to associate the gift of new clothes (pastel colors) with the idea of the Resurrection.  And as the years passed, I realized that my Mother, who had lost a child before I was born, who had lost her mother in a car accident...that Easter, though a time of hoping to be reunited with loved ones, down the road, was also a time of sadness and loss, for her.  One Easter morning, she was on her way to Church and just down the dirt road from our house, she saw my sister's dog, runned over and stretched out in the middle of the road, dead.  Her heart was softened, the tears hot and bitter.  She never did make it to church; the grief and loss had completely overtaken her.

  “It is our firm belief that [the Atonement] is a reality,” he testified, “and nothing is more important in the entire divine plan of salvation than the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We believe that salvation comes because of the atonement. In its absence the whole plan of creation would come to naught. … Without this atoning sacrifice, temporal death would be the end, and there would be no resurrection and no purpose in our spiritual lives. There would be no hope of eternal life.”^{2 (President Howard Hunter)}

^{Read Also: Why We Wear New Clothes at Easter}