Good Friday Devotion to read

This wasn't written to be a Good Friday devotion. Actually in the same book this came from, Ragman and Other Cries of Faith by Walter Wangerin Jr., there is a whole script planned out for a Maundy Thursday or Good Friday service. But this ("The Time in the City") is the story that touched me more.

"Well, I didn't know what to say, nor did I understand what I had the right to say. I wore out the Psalms; they were safe. I prayed often that the Lord's will be done, scared to tell him, or Joselyn, what his will ought to be; and scared of his will anyway.

"One day when she awoke from surgery, I determined to be cheerful, to bring life unto her and surely to avoid the spectre that unsettled me-death.

"I spoke brightly of the sunlight outside, vigorously of the tennis I had played that morning, sweetly of the flowers, hopefully of the day when she would sit again at the organ, reading music during the sermon. …

"But Joselyn raised a black, bony finger, pointed squarely at my nose, and said, "Shut up!"

"I learned so slowly in The City. Yet so patiently The City-and Joselyn Fields-taught me. I, who had thought to give her the world she didn't have, was in fact taking away the only world she did have. I had been canceling her serious, noble, faithful, and dignified dance with death.

"I shut up. I learned...."