"A Bullet for the General". I'd watched a spaghetti western online to sketch some portraits from its first and last scenes, and when I submitted my work to an artists' site, a moderator there made encouraging comments, saying my drawing had been improving.
Several years ago, I wrote a story about another bullet. A young Jewish bride, condemned to die in a prison camp during the holocaust, in line to wait before a firing squad, heard her fiance's whispered command to lie down in the ditch; trust him; and stay still until he came to get her.
She did...until she heard the guns go off, and a horrific dread yanked her to her feet and to the fence where she could see the pile of executed corpses...yes, her beloved's was there. He loved her; he had protected her and saved her life. He took the bullet for her to do it. Decades later, when telling of how her beau loved her, she couldn't help but speak of how He died in her place. Wouldn't it be almost cruel to not let a holocaust survivor share of her experience?
Yet when I can't help telling the story of how Jesus loved me and died for me on the cross; I am told people today do not want to hear offensive things like death and the cross and it would be preferable that I address things like love, art, and brotherhood instead.
