Spring is an annual reminder of one of my greatest childhood dreads. As an aspiring piano student, I did my share of practicing with a great deal of enjoyment and was always prepared for my lessons. It was the spring recital I detested and dreaded. That was the evening when I would wear a long evening dress and play a memorized recital selection.

It was meant to demonstrate the student’s advancement in piano skills, but for me, it demonstrated the power of fear and nerves in creating a debilitating stage fright. I went totally blank in more than one of those events, and I always left the piano keys wet with my sweat. Only after my spring recital was I able to enjoy the beginning of spring. How I dreaded a recital!

There have been other “dreads” that clouded my life. Our own children’s achievements have brought us great joy, but the strains of “Pomp and Circumstance” was a dread I had for most of their senior years. Yes, I understood that graduating and reaching goals were a blessing, but knowing college days would mean an entirely new chapter in my life and theirs was a realization that took me to the prayer closet with more earnestness.

When the graduates packed for college, I dreaded the day we would pull out of the driveway with Freshman gear, leaving behind two very empty bedrooms. Yes, I rejoiced for this academic opportunity for them, but that cloudy Dread kept reminding me of the changes taking place.

I’ve never really been excited about dentist appointments. Dread would be closer to my attitude.

I dreaded that tiring day in so many Julys that our family would “put up corn.” It might sound simple to those who’ve only bought the kind in the grocery freezer section, but dread described my day that the corn ripened. 

Any appointment that’s had anything to do with a needle piercing my skin has initiated dread in my thoughts. I can’t understand why I never realized that I nursed Dread longer than any injection ever lasted.

I still remember the dread of knowing some teachers excelled in giving pop quizzes and timed math drills. At a moment’s notice a teacher could say, “Get out a pencil and paper.” Dread would seize me and hold tightly until the drill had passed or I felt I had tested well.

Dread is probably a companion for most humans at some point in their lives. With the somber as well as celebratory thoughts of another approaching Easter, I’ve thought about Jesus and the Dread that must have been a part of His last days before the crucifixion. In fact, the shadow of the cross fell on Him in the manger. He came to die. The omniscient God in flesh knew where, how, and when that final day would come as well as knowing the pain He would endure.

Still, he grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man as a child and into manhood. He never ran away or told His Father that He wouldn’t or couldn’t go through with it. In the garden after His last supper, He prayed, asking God if there could be another way. There wasn’t. Did Christ’s dread of dying in a humiliating and torturous crucifixion stay with Him most of His short life? I’ve wondered. 

Dread is never a welcomed companion, but it comes. For all, death is Dread’s final blow. This Easter season, I want to meditate on the cost of the Sacrificial Lamb and thank Him for removing that word — DREAD — from our Heavenly vocabulary.

Camille Anding, The Daily Leader, P. O. Box 551, Brookhaven, MS 39602.