Editorial December 30, 1985 Issue

"Roots that survive winter"

BARBARA-JEAN STINSON

We were walking through a botanical garden on a cold wintry day. The flowers were mostly gone, and the garden looked quite dead. But right in the middle of this uninspiring scene was a bedding of perennials with a sign that read, "Roots that survive winter."

How encouraging that sign was! It served as a reminder—that if our thought is deeply rooted in the understanding of God, we cannot be overwhelmed by the times when everything seems dark and discouraging.

This was so apparent in the life of Christ Jesus. Although his healing work was abundant and totally successful, he met again and again with uncomprehending hostility. Yet the Master had an absolute conviction of God's supremacy and of his own God-given ability to refute anything that would claim to oppose God's allness. And he taught and spoke of God's dominion with total confidence. In Miscellaneous Writings Mary Baker Eddy writes of Jesus' assurance: "In no other one thing seemed Jesus of Nazareth more divine than in his faith in the immortality of his words. He said, 'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away;' and they have not. The winds of time sweep clean the centuries, but they can never bear into oblivion his words. They still live, and to-morrow speak louder than to-day. They are to-day as the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Make straight God's paths; make way for health, holiness, universal harmony, and come up hither.'"^{Mis., p. 99.}