It's amazing how different it can be to know something intellectually and to experience it firsthand. You can talk about the taste and texture of chocolate until you're blue in the face, but nothing beats a bite of gooey warm chocolate cake. You can see pictures of the Grand Canyon, but you haven't experienced its grandeur until you've stood there at the edge yourself. Similarly, I've believed for a long time that this earth and mankind itself is damaged by the effects of sin and the fall. However, seeing that wrongness firsthand in the literal brokenness of my daughter was entirely different. She was beautiful, but there's no denying that she was not as she was originally intended to be. This has become a vivid picture to me of how sin has marred the original beauty of creation.
Genesis 3:16 describes one of the consequences as sinfulness in the following way: "To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children." (NASB). This is one of those verses that didn't have much meaning to me personally as a child and teenager reading the Bible. Even as an adult, I kind of took it as face value as a literal painful labor and thought it was a little odd - why such a specific way of punishment? But after experiencing Joy's life and death, I began to delve a little deeper. I'm no theologian (I leave that to my husband!) but I think it is evident that the effects of sin and the fall are far more than excruciating contractions. I would argue that things like miscarriage and pregnancy loss are definitely painful parts of childbearing. What about birth defects? Premature birth? Infertility? One could even say that unplanned singleness and the unfulfilled desire to have children are part of this tragic consequence. I have walked along women who have experienced each of these situations and have seen the pain, both physical and emotional, these situations have caused in their lives. So far from being a momentary pain, this "curse" of painful childbirth cuts deep into who we are as women and effects us physically, mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually. (Not to say that children and family are the ONLY parts of being a woman, but I think they are intrinsic, God-given desires for many women.)
So those first two paragraphs have been stewing around in my head for awhile, but I wasn't sure where I was going with it. It seemed a pretty incomplete and depressing place to leave it as is! And then I began to think of the holidays and all their entrapments. Beneath all the holly jolly of the season, Christmas and the grand lead-up to its arrival can be a difficult time for many people for various reasons. And in my experience, it is a particularly difficult time for those who have experienced "pain in childbirth" in any of its various forms. At our house, it is seeing ornaments bearing our daughter's name on the tree, but knowing there will be no girly presents under the tree. It is seeing the infant at the live nativity scene, thinking of what might have been. Just knowing that someone is missing who was much planned for and loved. For so many women and families, the pain of loss is intensified during this merry season in various ways.
May I suggest that this underlying sadness is not only permissible but particularly appropriate at this time of year? In an under-celebrated way, this pain and the greater story around it truly is the reason for the season. It serves as a vivid reminder to our hearts that all is not as it should be; that despite the gifts and the food and the fun, things are not all as they were meant to be. As I'm sure you know, that baby in a manger grows up to be the savior of us all! The period of four weeks before Christmas is commonly celebrated as "Advent". Advent is commonly defined as "the arrival of a notable thing, person, event." So while we celebrate the first Advent of Christ in the manger, our hearts are more deeply longing for his second Advent; when the baby who we celebrate at Christmas comes once and for all to ultimately relieve the curse of pain in childbearing. What beautiful imagery!
I recently discovered a CD entitled "Waiting Songs" by Rain for Roots. I love the whole thing and its focus on the waiting period of Advent. But one particular song has really gotten under my skin (in a good way). It's entitled "Mary Consoles Eve," and as the title implies, Mary is talking to Eve. I'd encourage you to listen to it, but here's an excerpt of the lyrics in case you don't:
"Eve, it's Mary, now I'm a mother too
The child I carry a promise coming true
This babe comes to save us from our sins
A servant king his kingdom without end
Almost not yet already
Almost not yet already
Almost not yet already
He comes to make his blessing flow
as far and wide as the curse is found
He comes to make his blessing flow"
Of all mothers, Mary certainly experienced the curse of pain in childbearing - physical pain of traveling on a donkey or on foot while amazingly pregnant and giving birth in an inhospitable place surrounded by animals. But what of the emotional pain of her pregnancy - the whispered rumors and gossip surrounding an unplanned and out-of-wedlock pregnancy? But Mary knew the truth of the situation; she understood the promise of the babe she was carrying. God is a master story-weaver - how better to break the curse of the pain of childbirth than by beginning with the birth of a baby?!
So this Christmas season, whether your pain is one related to the various pains of childbirth or if it is another result of the fall (because really, isn't that the source of all pain?), I pray that you embrace it. Yes, have your celebrations and enjoy your family and the carols and the merrymaking. But take time to remember that the ultimate culmination of Advent is not Christmas morning, but Christ's second coming, when the curse will be broken and "He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:4, ESV). What a beautiful promise of our ultimate hope - redemption and restoration!
Merry Christmas...and happy waiting!
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