The Chocolate Rabbit

A Little Girl With a Strategy

             It looked 12 feet tall! Why wouldn't it look enormous to a little girl who had lived most of her life while the Great Depression was in full sway in the United States? All weary Oklahomans around her were clad in patched clothing, battling the Dust Bowl and discouragement. My mother, Bernyce Smith, a perceptive child, was mesmerized by what seemed to her to be an enormous chocolate rabbit.

          One of the stores in Fairfax, around Easter, sponsored a promotional contest encouraging customers to purchase a small piece of candy to see if it might be wrapped in the winning candy paper. The person who purchased the winning candy piece would unwrap the candy and discover the candy wrapper that indicated the winning of a 12-inch chocolate rabbit. How the contest appealed to my mother, a child of the Great Depression!

That springtime day, my mother, a smart, little girl, stood quietly in the shadows of the store and observed that the chocolate rabbit was still there. She concluded immediately that the winning candy piece had not been purchased yet. She made it her objective and goal to win that chocolate rabbit. While her parents were doing their weekly shopping in Fairfax, my mother spent the afternoon in and around the store that sponsored the chocolate rabbit give-away. She monitored the amount of candy pieces left and began to strategize. Finally, the moment she had been awaiting arrived. She recognized only a small number of candy pieces remained. She felt in her pocket, mentally calculating. The clever, little girl’s heartbeat quickened when she realized in her pocket she had just enough money to buy the remaining candy pieces. She was assured that one of those pieces had to be wrapped in the winning candy wrapper. It was a calculated, guaranteed win for her. That delectable chocolate rabbit would be hers to take out of the store in her very own hands.

The shy, but perceptive kid gathered all her courage and walked to the counter. She told the store clerk that she would like to buy candy chances. Sure enough, before she had bought the final candy chance, my mother had selected the piece of candy wrapped in the winning wrapper that made the coveted chocolate rabbit her own. She was walking on air as she left the store with the chocolate rabbit that she had won because of her thoughtful strategy and not chance or luck.

My mother, Bernyce Smith
Gates as a child.

            As Easter is being celebrated by many around the world, one realizes that just as Mother’s action was one of assuredly winning the chocolate rabbit, so is the confident certainty of the person who internalizes the belief that Jesus declared to grief-stricken Martha of Bethany. He said to her “I am the resurrection and the life and he who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”
          Then He pointedly asked her amidst her anguish and heartache, “Do you believe this?”
Martha had watched her brother suffer through a serious illness that ended in death. Undoubtedly, through tears and weariness of sorrow, she summoned all the strength she had left after her four days of grieving and replied, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”
         What a blessing to have the assurance that a life-altering belief in Jesus’ death and resurrection ensures abundant life now and eternal life after death!