May 10, 2026:

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“To the woman God said, ‘I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.’”

(Genesis 3.16)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

Oh, I can hear it now: UNFAIR! The legacy of not standing up for who God had created and set in motion with a double blessing is fraught with the pain of “unfair.” For the greatest majority of women, the joy of childbearing comes with the cost and pain of bearing children. I have only experienced it from the perspective of a husband who brought a daughter into this world. The pains I had to anticipate and endure were well worth the effort. They, in no way, compare to the pain and suffering her mother experienced for all kinds of physiological reasons. I did my best to help to mitigate the pain and suffering she went through. I knew only medication would actually anesthetize it and it was a final option available. I did for her what even nurses could not do, at least no the nurses in that ward. I went through the birth of our daughter and nearly got to deliver her. Why? Because the doctor that was our doctor got called into an emergency birthing with a fourteen-year old foster daughter whose foster mom (no baby daddy and no momma husband) was standing the gap alone. And it was not easy. As hard as it was for us and our daughter with all the complications her birth presented, it paled in comparison to what they little girl was going through. What it must have been like for Eve, the first woman of the people of God, to have gone through childbirth essentially alone. What use was Adam who stood idly by as the Serpent lured her into the temptation that would forever change their lives? What use was Adam for blamed her for the situation where they now feared God more than love Him and had to hide in guilt and shame? What use was Adam who wasn’t even willing to die or take a life to protect her from shame and guilt but camouflaged her in large sycamore leaves saying “Here take these, be still and be quiet”? Where was Adam now as she writhed and convulsed in pain so great she thought of death as reality and not just a word? Was he out in the field in the midst of his own pain and suffering for failure to attend the one of his flesh and bone in her hour of greatest need? Was he so self-absorbed and cursing Eve under his breath, perhaps even cursing God, so what he was going through? Unjust, unfair, undeserving. And the serpent nipping at his heel was cursing him saying “If only you had stopped me then at least I would have not been relegated to eat the dust you turn up as you till the soil for the rest of your life. I could have remained a darkened angel with wings clipped but….” All about self! That is the price of sin… putting self above all others and complaining because everyone else is doing the same.

And in the end, by the afternoon, two babies in adjacent rooms were finally come into the world. One was caught in the nick of time. One was carefully coaxed into the world in what seemed like an eternity. One was born scoring a ten and beautiful, she would never know how she came into the world except by story. The other was a different story. She was a breach and had to be turned. Her mother was weak and small. It would seem the baby was as big as her. There was nothing easy about it except to scream in pain and the foster mother wept with each push. She couldn’t give up or else the little mother might to. The baby was born under great stress. Her name might as well been scarlet because that was the color of her skin. It was a color that still was with her by the next morning in the nursery as I walked to get coffee and take a moment to see my daughter in the crib next to hers. One quiet and sleeping in peace despite the trembling cry of the other still in shock from all that had happened. We would take our daughter home two days later. She would not. But Eve would not have such luxuries of hospitals, birthing rooms, doctors, nurses, sedation, encouragement. We don’t hear Adam breathing with her or rubbing her back due to intense pain? We don’t hear of ministering angels. If they were there, their presence was overshadowed by the consequence of disobedience. UNFAIR? Sin comes with a price even in motherhood.

And I think of Mary, the fourteen year old betrothed of Joseph the carpenter from Nazareth. She rode to Bethlehem on a donkey in the final weeks of her full term. A stable in the hollow of a rock covered in straw and surrounded by strangers. Was Jesus’ birth more like my daughter or the poor foster child? Was the pain of Mary intense but uncomplicated or was it over the edge? We dare not think that just because Jesus was the Son of God that being born the Son of Man gave Him or Mary a free pass. We now the gospel testimony that God sent His Son into the world to bear the pain and suffering of countless generations of sinners unrepentant and self-satisfied. He bore the cross and anguish of the whip that stripped flesh from His bones exposing vital organs to the world of dust. He drowned exchanging the space where the Spirit of God took residence for the water out of which the dust had been raised into order for life on earth to begin. His exit from mortal life could convince us that His entrance came with a price. A price that Mary would pay, too, as she kept of things about Him in her heart. A heart that would be pierced also!

So, let us give thanks to our mothers who have endured much for the sake of being who God called them to be. The bearers of a future generation and generations to follow is their lot. It was never promised to be easy this side of Eden and this side of the cross. Caught betwixt and between the birth and the death, moms stand the gap for their babies even when they become adults. The legacy given to her because of the choice of someone else goes on. It goes on but is mitigated by the testimony of God’s decision to bear the pain with us and then for us. He clothed Adam and Eve in animal skins, the sign of sacrifice. They died that day to a perfect way of life. God did, too, knowing the only way to restoring that perfect life was sacrifice:

And when I think that God, His Son not sparing
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in
That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing
He bled and died to take away my sin. (from the hymn “How Great Thou Art.”)

But, we can mitigate it ourselves in part by grasping on to mothering and motherhood. We can honor those who paid a fleshly and emotion price for bringing us into the world. We can honor the God of their lives who covered them with His own Son’s sacrifice. If not for moms, we would not be here. That is the story of Creation. God had us in mind when He paused to restore order out of the chaos. Where did the chaos come from, God only knows. Where do we come from? We know, or many know and some do not… Whether we know their name or not, we know it is impossible for us to be here today without a mother. Born perfect and beautiful or stressed and struggling, we are born. Let it be into a world of a mother’s love, mighty ones of God, with joy and thanksgiving that out of chaos comes life. It may not seem fair, but it is just and blessed by God for the end is ours to choose even if our birth was not.

TODAY’S PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness but as righteous works of faith, hope and love in Jesus’ name. AMEN.