Painted the Town Red for Me. (Easter Edition)

Each year, we celebrate your death—the death of a man who was blameless, a man who embodied love wholly. We watch tales of the crucifixion, and each year I shed a little bit of tears. The more each time I watch it, because each time I watch it, I'm older, and the older I get, the better I understand and the more guilty I feel.

Your death wasn't just any kind of death. It was a callous one, one terribly and unfairly inflicted on you. But what was your crime? You came here to save me, yet I spat in your face and called you out and told them to strike you down.

Each year, I celebrate your death. It's my own version of Valentine's, because you indeed painted the town red for my sake. Even on the cross, after you had been nailed in—you had been nailed to that tree which you tirelessly carried up the mountain of Calvary—even on that very cross, you did not curse us.

You did not curse the ones who mocked you to your face. You did not curse the soldiers who pierced into your side, even as you struggled to lift yourself, to breathe—each breath a fight for life. You did not curse the tree on which you had been nailed. You did not curse the soil that drank of your blood.

Instead, you looked up into the skies and spoke with so much love and so much grace—one I can never, ever, ever fully comprehend—and you said,“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.”

--Author: Enam

--Instagram: _mishel.xo