During breakfast one Saturday morning, I started to have some slight pains. It was February 6, 1999 and my expected due date was four days away. From past experience, however, I knew the baby could come at any time. Similar pains had occurred earlier in the month, so I was not positive if the pains were just a false alarm. I attended church and made it through the service. As the day progressed, however, the pains started to become more periodic.
Within a few hours I began having real contractions. I knew I was going to have a baby that day. At first the contractions were about 10 minutes apart and I could have normal conversations between them. When the pains began to get closer and closer, I could hardly think of anything else, besides enduring the next contraction. My husband drove my family and I quickly to the birth center.
When the baby’s head began to come out, a few seconds felt like eternity. All that was racing in my mind was getting the baby out and stopping the pain. Then in just a few minutes, I was holding a little baby in my arms. It was no longer just “the baby” but it was my precious baby boy—my child! I experienced an incredible sense of happiness, pride and joy at that moment. The darkness of pain burst into beautiful rays of light and joy. Going through labor suddenly shrunk into insignificance. I can hardly remember the pain now.
My birth experience helped me to gain a fuller understanding of the meaning behind the verses found in John 16:21,22. It says, “A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I [Jesus] will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.”
I have realized through my life and by the experience of others that every person has some kind of trial or heartache, whether large or small. There are all different kinds of sorrow. It may be a death of a loved one, pressures in school, illness, problems at work, financial burdens, marriage and family problems, etc.
There will always be sadness in this life, but there is hope. We have the promise that when Jesus comes again, there will be no more heartache and pain. We will not even remember our sadness because the joys of heaven will far outweigh and overshadow it. No one will be able to take away our happiness. The next time that you are going through difficulties, remember that Jesus is there to help you and that there will be end to all the pain someday, very soon. Praise God!
