The reality of life in a broken world is that we see pain everywhere we look.

And perhaps nowhere is pain more poignant than in the lives of hurting children. We see suffering in broken homes, overpacked orphanages, and CPS offices. We watch its devastating effects in hateful outbursts, global developmental delays, inability to trust … and unrelenting heartbreak.

And when we bring these children who have experienced trauma into our homes, so too, we bring their pain into our lives and hearts.

It’s inevitable, exhausting, and lonely.

But regardless of what you’re going through, there is hope. This month we’ll observe Good Friday—which is the answer to every bit of your hurt.

So what does Good Friday have to do with your current brokenness and hurt?

1. Good Friday proves that Jesus understands your pain.

“For we do not have a high priest Who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One Who in every respect has been tempted as we are …” (Hebrews 4:15)

God would have been kind to include those words in Scripture even if we had no specific examples to prove them true.

So how much more powerful do these words become when we remember Good Friday? Jesus entered into the fullness of human dysfunction when He unjustly suffered the wrath of God on our behalf. No human suffering—before or after—has been more undeserved or gone more unresolved, and yet Jesus embraced it for our good and His glory.

He knows how it feels to be hurt by those He loves.
He knows what it’s like to suffer silently.
Yes, He knows what it is to die to self so that someone else may live.

He knows … and He cares.

2. Good Friday demonstrates that God has a bigger plan for your suffering.

Christianity is compelling precisely because it doesn’t waste an ounce of suffering for those who know Jesus. There is not one example of pain in your life—not the disappointment, not the grief, not the mistreatment—over which God is unable or unwilling to write “GOOD.”

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

Every pain and disappointment—in your life or the life of your child—is allowed for your deepest, highest, and longest good. How is that possible?—Because God is able, and because sin was avenged in the death of Jesus on Good Friday.

3. Good Friday illustrates that God is willing and able to meet your deepest need.

The work you are doing to love and provide for the child in your care is really no different than the work God is doing to love and provide for you. Both were made possible because of what Jesus did at the Cross.

And since He’s now called you to the task of caring for a child in need, He will supply all you need to obey.

“He Who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32)

You can face today, tomorrow, next week, and the next 50 years because God wrote the word “good” over the worst day in human history. And He’s equally committed to writing “good” over the worst days in your life.

What does Good Friday have to do with your current brokenness and hurt?—everything.

This Good Friday, would you commit to reaching children in need?