Let’s keep going. Notice God’s interaction with Eve. Genesis 3:15- 16 To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children.

I’ve always understood this passage to mean, guess what ladies, giving birth was going to hurt. I got it easy with our two kids, besides not having to do anything, both of our kiddos came as C-section, challenge to Theresa, but for me, piece of cake.

But as I continued to study this week, I think there is something more and something deeper going on.

You have to remember, translation is always an act of interpretation. We are taking another language, written thousands of years ago into our current language and setting. Besides there’s an old adage that says, “you get five rabbi’s in a room talking about a challenging passage and you will get ten interpretations.”

I don’t want to take you too far into the weeds. I am going to try and make it plain for you. The word “pains” is used as the same word in verse 17 for toil, which means hard/difficult work, but this word is never used for labor or childbearing. The root word of “pains” refers to pain, agony, hardship, worry, nuisance, and anxiety.

Also, the Hebrew word for childbearing or childbirth should be defined as “to become pregnant” the root word is used 62 times and every time it means to conceive.

Which means, the chaos and brokenness of universal sin in the world means that there is agony, hardship, worry, anxiety around the circumstances in which children are conceived, born, raised, and in which they die.

God is naming the fact that there is pain (worry, hardship, anxiety) in conceiving or not being able to conceive, being pregnant, having a child, raising children, losing a child. God
is declaring this is broken, he didn’t do this to you, he is saying this is the pain of a broken world.

Many of you know that Theresa and I faced challenges in this area. We struggled in getting pregnant, then staying pregnant, having five miscarriages. There is no doubt we had more questions than answers. And I would say we did blame God for the brokenness of this part of our life. Fo others, you have different stories of brokenness.

My push is this; this isn’t about blaming God for the brokenness, He didn’t do this to you, it’s a crying out of saying, “I don’t know why this is hard, but I know life is broken, how do I trust God in the midst of brokenness? How do you trust despite the grief and pain?

We have a hard time with the practice of grief within the church. We have a belief that we should always be happy, silver-lining, glass half-full. Even yesterday we talked about living in victory. Those things are true, but I would argue those things are even more true when we are honest with our emotions, specifically grief and fear.

Jesus was honest with his grief as he faced the brokenness of the world. This is God’s lament, his poem of grief of the brokenness of the world. Which should give us permission to bring our grief to God, our Father who sees us with open arms.

I’ve talked directly about the impact for women in conceiving, pregnancy, birth, child rearing, and loss. But I believe this is invitation of grief is for all of us.

"God is saying, 'I hear you, I want you to cry out to me... I want to love you in the midst of your pain and grief.'" How comfortable are you bringing your raw emotions—anger, grief, disappointment—to God? What might help you grow in this?

Meet with God, honestly around your grief, your broken dreams, share with him how you feel and allow him to meet you there. You can use this song as a guide as well. Come to the Altar