“Ma,” asked the little girl, scampering after her mother, “What’s Good Friday?”

“It’s the day Jesus died on the cross!” said the mother as she smiled at her daughter’s widening eyes, knowing what the next question would be.

“If Jesus died on the cross, how can it be a good day ma?” asked the child.

“Do you remember six months ago, when we gave you a puppy?” asked the mother.

“Yes, ma. He cried and cried all night, keeping you and daddy awake!”

“What did daddy say the next day?”

“He said if he heard another sound the next night, he would throw the puppy out of the house!”

“Ah!” said the mother, “You remember that don’t you? And by that time, you had grown to love your little puppy!”

“I was so sad,” said the little daughter, “And I was wondering what to do, and then I came into your room, just before you both were going to sleep!”

“We were surprised to see you,” said her mother, “It was way past your bedtime, you were crying and daddy asked you what was wrong!”

“I told daddy, if the puppy cried that night, he could throw me and not the puppy out of the house!”

“Yes,” said the mother, “Good Friday is just like that!”

“Jesus wanted to save a puppy?”

“Jesus wanted to save us!” smiled the mother, “Like your puppy’s disturbing sounds, we had made God angry with our wicked ways, and God would have had to punish us for all we had done, but then, instead Jesus came down to earth and took our punishment!”

“Like how I told daddy I would take our little puppy’s punishment?”

“Yes,” said the mother, “But it wasn’t merely being thrown out of a house, he was beaten, humiliated, whipped, flogged and nailed to a cross, till he died!”

“So it was very painful for him, but good for us?”

“Yes, my child, just as it was good for the puppy that you decided to take its punishment, it was good for us people that Jesus decided to take our punishment. Today I can talk and walk with God despite my wickedness, bad habits, wrong ways because somebody else took the punishment for me!”

The girl and her mother walked home and the mother looked as the puppy, now a little bigger, came running out of the house and jumped into her daughter’s arms, “He seems to be grateful to me mother!”

“Yes my child, just as we should be grateful to Jesus always for taking our punishment...!”

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