From Epidural to Eternity: The Pain in Birthing and Raising Our Children

I am not sure that epidurals have put an end to the pain that women experience in childbearing (Gen 3:16). While modern medicine has made many attempts to subvert the hopeful plan of God after the fall, I am noticing that the efforts have fallen miserably short. Labor may not be as painful as it was in the past, but bearing and raising children is as painful as ever. The discomfort that begins with contractions soon turns to travail, and then continues until the mother returns to the dust. 

Immediately after delivery, the mother and father celebrate their lovely child who is ironically covered in the mother's blood. Once the baby comes out, relentless efforts are made to wipe off the evidence that this child just passed through the "waters" of his or her parent's lineage - the evidence that this child has been "baptized" into Adam; that he or she has been brought forth in iniquity.

In the same room during those first minutes, one hears the juxtaposition of two very different experiences. While the parents laugh and weep with joy, gratitude, and excitement, the child screams and cries while it experiences the chill and discomfort of entering this new world. 

From that day forward, the parenting experience will always be marked by joy and sorrow, comfort and pain, laughter and tears, life and death.

The conversations in my home alone are a witness to this. We commonly smile and find great joy when our children do something cute, say something funny, or exude godly character. But there are plenty of conversations filled with feelings of concern, guilt, and desperation. 

It is so painful to witness a child withdraw in fear after experiencing unjust anger. It is so painful to watch our children struggle with what seems to be generational anxiety. And nothing has pierced our hearts deeper and more painfully than when one of our children lies to protect themselves from the repercussions of their own sinful actions. 

I am confident that the pain Eve felt when she delivered Cain paled in comparison to the pain she felt when Cain murdered her other son, his brother. And so it is with us as we watch sin trickle down the generational line. Consequently, we are always parenting with this pain in view - making plans, setting up systems, laying down laws, and enforcing restrictions - all to ensure they are protected from fallenness, and to ensure we are better protected from the pain of watching them suffer through the futility of this world. 

But we must not allow the painful darkness to eclipse the redemptive light. Though it is painful to watch the effects of sin in the lives of our children, we must not forget the gospel. The blood that marked them at conception placed them in the very category that Jesus came to save. I hate that my children are sinful and that they have a father and mother who are sinful as well. But I find hope in that Jesus came to save and dwell among sinful people. And he is relentlessly strong to bring forth light from darkness, joy from pain, and dancing where there was once nothing but sorrow. 

We should all remember that the pain of Gen 3:16 was given by God in light of the promise of Gen 3:15. We should always see the tragedy of sin in our homes as a strange opportunity for repentance and faith in our amazing Savior. And we should be ever ready to direct our children to the very place we find refuge, strength, safety and salvation - Jesus Christ, the Savior of the World. And we should always communicate our unique hope, that even though we have been brought forth in iniquity, we will one day be reborn in glory.