Pain in Childbearing / Thorns and Thistles

When reading Genesis 3:16 in The Message, you'll find the words to that verse to say this:

"He told the Woman, "I'll multiply your pains in childbirth;

you'll give birth to your babies in pain...."

The reminder of those words prompted my thinking about moms all over the world today, and their pain in their child-births! But just because our children grow and get older, I don't know that we ever quit "birthing" our babies and find an end to our pain. We continue laboring on with them in every next new thing that they do. Paining through each new stage and paining through each new age. Birthing new things, new steps, new phases: bottles to sippy cups, diapers to pull-ups, gnawing on everything that they can put their hands on to cutting that 1st new tooth, ear infections and colds and shots, 1st words that aren’t even decipherable yet except to you!, crawling and falling, car seats and strollers, pulling-up & holding-on in efforts to finally stand on their own!, taking that 1st step!, cheered on from the 1st step to the 2nd >>> clapping to “Come to momma!” till walking alone, McDonald’s Happy Meals, gibberish to talking in full sentences, potty training, tricycling to bicycling, skinned knees, hurt elbows, Mother's Day Out programs, biting, Kindergarten, time-outs, notes home from the teacher, 1st grade(!), new friends, mean kids, kind teachers, strict ones, good grades.... bad(!), 2nd grade ... 3rd.... 4th..... 5th….. 6th, girlfriends, boyfriends, telephone talking, texting(!), ballgames, swinging >>>> but only striking out!, swinging >>> and running home!, graduation, college, serious dating, serious breakups, weddings, marriage, babies (and so much that I skipped over and left out!) …………………… A continual cycle of ‘birthing’ our babies…… “in PAIN”!

If you’ll continue to read in Genesis 3 after reading what God told the woman, you'll find next what He told the man:

"He told the Man ...
The very ground is cursed because of you;
getting food from the ground will be as painful as having babies is for your wife;
you'll be working in pain all your life long.
The ground will sprout thorns and weeds,
you'll get your food the hard way,
planting and tilling and harvesting,

sweating in the fields from dawn to dusk,
until you return to that ground yourself, dead and buried..."

Ever wonder "Why?" your spouse is having a stressful time of it at work and thinking constantly and consistently of his job and all that it entails? While you're paining in childbirth ... he's paining in "getting his food the hard way." We wives must remember that it's just as "painful for him" as having babies is for us. While he’s "sweating in the field from dawn to dusk" we're sweating at home trying to figure out what to do with the children we've got.............

It just now dawned on me how badly our feelings can get hurt because the other can't relate and sympathize to our pain. Husbands can’t relate to wives. Wives can’t relate to their husbands. Bless our hearts, we are both dealing with and consumed in and hurting through our own pain! And we're pained even more at our spouse’s lack of feeling our pain! Hmmmm.... who has time to? We're both busy licking our own wounds ... leaving not a lot of time left to lick the other's wounds ... especially when we're wishing that they would lick ours!

What if next time we want to whine about them not giving enough attention to us we rather instead remember that they need some extra attention of their own? For both of us are laboring in the curse of the pain we've been given. It's plain out hard and frustrating for everybody! We were warned that 'In this world we would have trouble, but take heart, Jesus has overcome the world!'

Pain in childbearing? Thorns and Thistles? Okay, shall we all be happy now, we're par on course, right on target, right where we were told we would be.

(((*smile*))) Now go, and enjoy the blessings we've been given (both our children and our work!); for where would we be without them?

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