May 30.

Eight years ago yesterday I gave birth to my daughter.

Yesterday has been a fun, fun day. Over the course of it, however, Juni kept asking me details about her birth.

At what time was I born?
What were you doing before going to the hospital?
What was dad doing at this time?
Was it painful?

For some of those questions I didn't have an answer (I truly don't remember what I was doing 3 hours after she was born! My guess would be either sleep or nurse her!)

But there is one answer I most certainly can't forget:

Was it painful?

Absolutely yes.

It still amazes me, however, that something so painful can result in something so beautiful.

I know pain (at least, that pain) is the result of the curse, but yesterday I found myself wondering if the choice of the curse was a way for God to show us how He operates and how we should deal with pain.
Giving birth is probably the closest we can get to the "creative process". God, in a way, made us part of that process. And He chose to make it not an easy task (and it doesn't get any easier after we do give birth..)

Pain is not just part of the birthing process. Pain is part of all aspects of our lives. But maybe it has (or should have) the same result in every circumstance: new life.
Be it physical or emotional, pain results in something new. A new understanding, a new baby, a new view of life, a new peace.

Pain always means change. Sometimes it's for the better, sometimes it's not. And sometimes pain breeds more pain if we let it.
But God intended for pain to be the arrow that points to Him and to the blessings He wants to bestow on us.
It's like He's saying "I know what you're going through, but you'll find Me on the other side!"

Jesus Himself went through pain to get to the joy of sitting at the right hand of God.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

James confirms that when he says:

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds...

Or Paul, when he says:

Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.

Again.. pain should lead to life.
Life in Him. And when we find life in Him, all we can do is rely on Him and not ourselves.
Good grief! How could we rely on ourselves when we cannot even make one hair on our head white or black????

Anyway, I'm sure I am not saying anything of great depth or that any of you has not already thought about.

I just needed to be reminded, I guess.

navide

PS ~ Just a note. I am not saying in any way that we should look for pain. My point is to keep pressing on when we do face painful situations (and that's pretty much a given for everybody on this earth), and not "artificially" create them.