Dear Jesus,

Today is Good Friday and my thoughts go back more than 2,000 years ago when this day brought blood from your forehead due to the anticipation of what was about to happen to you. You knew what would happen, what needed to be done. You knew how the whole day would be played out from the betrayal of Judas to your death on the cross. You asked if there was any other way that this could be accomplished, that this cup be taken from you. But there wasn't. Your love for me was worth more than what you were about to endure. Your love for people who would choose to go against your teaching, people who would deny you, people who would spit on you, people who would sin against you and hurt you over and over again. People who would laugh at your pain as they whipped you with nails. You did this for them. Everything that you went through should have been done to them because you weren't the one who sinned, they were. I am. Yet you took it for them, for me. You took our punishment so that we wouldn't have to. You brought us love, hope and peace that we could never have on our own. Yet we still choose the wrong attitude, the wrong response, the wrong choice, the wrong thought daily. Still you never give up on us, you never stop loving us hoping one day, before it's too late, we'll choose you. I choose you Jesus! Thank you for the greatest gift anyone can give me. Thank you for never leaving me. Thank you for paying a debt I could never pay. You are my hero!

In your name,
Amen