It’s about Peter. I know about Peter. I know Peter’s role in Good Friday. He denied Jesus, not once, but three times. Three is a significant number in the Bible. It symbolizes completeness. Peter completely and totally denied Jesus when He was at His weakest. It was like kicking Him when He was down.
For some reason (providential I’m sure), this hit me right between the eyes. Jesus knows exactly how I (and thousands of other adoptive families) feel.
We always talk about how Jesus knows our pain, but this wasn’t hypothetical.
This was real.
We talk about how He was rejected by society and that’s what landed Him on the cross, but Peter was a close friend.
This was personal.
Whenever I’ve considered the suffering of Christ, the image of the actual, physical crucifixion comes to mind. The rejection never seemed significant until I experienced it so intensely firsthand.
I tend to have pity parties for myself when my kids from hard places reject me. Now, I’ll think of Peter and Jesus and read 1 Peter 4 and remember how God redeemed Peter’s rejection and used it for God’s glory.