Good Friday

Dear readers,
Today is good Friday. It always has struck me as strange as to why the saddest day of the year is called "good". Why no mournful or sorrowful? And then I thought, can't sad things be good as well? Are we in a world where sad=bad or good=happy? It seems so a lot of the time. But it is far from true. Going off into missions, leaving your family and friends is sad but it is also good! And the most generous, good, loving thing happened today about 2010 years ago. Christ died for us on a cross. Humiliated, beaten, bloody and torn to save us and allow us to dwell eternally with him! What is more good than that?
My family and I went to the living way of the cross. And even seeing a college aged student wearing clothes covered with red marker lines and a wooden crown made my heart wring. I am not one for anything cheesy, but yet that was not possibly an adjective that you could place on this. Rather, because I new it was real and it is my love story, everyone's love story, it broke my heart. Thinking about approaching Christ, Jesus, The messiah with whips and nails is beyond something my heart can take. Why have I ever sinned? Why have I let temptation nail my Lord to the cross? Why even though I am painfully aware will I fall into it again? And why, even though he by no means deserved it, did Jesus allow himself to get killed for me?
So many questions I can't truly answer, except the last one. And the answer is Love. Raw, overflowing, pressed down, unmeasurable love, of the purest kind. And in this case a big wooden cross is it's symbol.
Peace and Love in Christ,
Alyse