By: Ali Elizabeth Turner
It’s already April, and quite frankly, I am still trying to set my goals for 2025. I am also keenly aware that this month is absolutely packed with history, celebrations, controversies, and opportunities to pray, praise, and perceive.
And the very things that make April so awful as well as so awesome are the events that illustrate the good, the bad, the ugly, and more that are a part of our collective human story. We must always maintain a commitment to “let the story be the story,” and to tell it, no matter what.
I was approached in March about the fact that April is Confederate Soldier month, and was given a list of men from our region who fell in the War Between the States, one of the darkest four years in our history. There were pages full of names that are still common in our area—names like Hobbs, Yarbrough, McKinney, Christopher, McCurry, and Malone. They were the children of parents who loved and prayed for them, and I tried to imagine what it would have been like to have been a mom back then that had lost a son, and or perhaps more than one. Even more difficult would have been being a mom of sons who fought for opposing sides. I thought of the fact that Israel itself experienced a North/South split that came about as a result of some of the same kind of politics, and Jesus encountered and spoke to that split in His day. I was sobered when I considered that the northern tribes and the southern tribes claimed to worship the same God.
I learned from a family member with deep roots in the Carolinas that during the War Between the States, her Quaker ancestors were pacifists, and it violated their conscience to bear arms. They were sent defenseless to the front to be literal fodder so that armed soldiers would not be the first to fall. And I think of the fact that King David, who was considered to be a man after God’s own heart (save in the matter of Uriah and Bathsheba), sent a man to the front in order to accomplish that man’s death.
April. It is the month when, thank God, the War Between the States ended. It is the month of Passover. It is the month of the death, burial, and resurrection of Yeshua our Savior. And, I don’t think I have ever been more thankful that I am redeemed. Someone loved me first, died for me, and has never given up on me.
I am fully enjoying, that for the first time since I can remember, we are hearing words from the White House that include “Holy Week,” “services,” “worship,” and more. And, I am also fully enjoying that no one is being inappropriate on the White House lawn doing things that in any other context would have resulted in an arrest. Let’s just leave it at that.
So, April is here in all its fullness. It is awful, and it is awesome. It is the perfect symbol of fallen humans that need to be redeemed, and the unspeakable love that came to do just that. My fond hope and prayer for readers of Athens Now is that this weekend will be a time when you and your family experience more than too much chocolate or the satisfaction of sporting brand-new duds to church. May it be a signal to yourself and heaven that you are choosing to let April be amazing no matter your personal back story. A joyous resurrection celebration to you all.
April 18, 2025
