Painfully Natural

Painfully Natural

11/23/19

I will never personally understand the sensation and the physical pain that a woman goes through when she delivers a baby.  Through the profession that I have loved for decades now, I have been witness to many scenarios in the birth room including the birth of my children.  The process of giving birth is not easy by any means and it would seem “normal” to do whatever possible to limit the agony and stress but for the most part, this “easiness” is only a partial plan, so why would a woman choose to go through a process either alone or with someone who does not share in the total joy of birth?  From all indications in the Bible, the conception and birth processes were not as they are today and this process is just as much a responsibility of the father of the child as it is for the delivering process of the mother.  God accepts life as His own since He is the definition of life, so when we decide to have children it should be a time when love rules the heart and not the world for the processions afterward will be challenging and all the help necessary will be needed.

Genesis 3:16

“Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.”

Some of you may know that my wife and I have four daughters and while three of them were born from my wife one of them was born inside my first marriage.  All of us know that while Ariana is not from Bonnie, Bonnie loves her with all of her heart and treats her just as if she did give birth to her.  There is no separation when it comes to giving life for the process all around is the same and should be treated as such.  With each birth setting, Bonnie will tell you that all three girls’ birthing process was totally different and while they were different there were some common themes that presented with each process.  The pain was the one that stands out the most when asked and my wife makes no bones about it either.  The only issue I have with the birth of three of my daughters is that I was not able to be present for one of them.  Tatem my oldest was conceived before I entered into the picture so I missed that part of her life.  It does not matter for I accepted her as my own and continue to love her as such today.  But here lies one of the major issues and problems of today, the absence of the father when the process of childbirth occurs, there are countless reasons why this occurs but once again a common theme exists, they are not there and it adds a great deal of pain that is not necessary.

When our third daughter was born, I remember that Bonnie’s process of delivering began a few weeks before Rachel was born.  Many times late in the evening she would begin contracting and believed that it was getting time for the delivery, and every time would stop the contractions and end up going back to the house and going back to sleep.  While this process was a bit frustrating I had the privilege of being with Bonnie each time these false contractions occurred.  Not too much later Rachel was born early in the morning and all went well during and after the birthing process.  The only hitch in the process was that the lady next to Bonnie in our room was going through a very rough ordeal in that she was about to deliver a stillborn.  We were asked to hold down our celebrations in consideration for this young lady right next to us.  I cannot imagine how this lady must have felt hearing Rachel cry at times and the laughter and joy that we experienced when we held her.  To this day, I think about this lady and how she must have felt when she finally delivered her dead baby, nothing but pain and sorrow I imagine.  Another example of how the birthing process takes hold of one’s heart and delivers its own pain and agony to the human being.  One of the sounds that a human never forgets is the wail of a mother when she loses her child, I have heard this deep cry many times over my career in the medical field and it is one of more pain than one can imagine.  It is this inner pain that is an addition to what God states here in the verse that we shall be using for this article.

Our last daughter was born in the operating room and her presence has been exemplified through this birthing process.  Bonnie knew that Rebekkah would be different from all her sisters just by the way she acted inside the womb and how Bonnie carried her during this period of time.  Sure enough, Bekkah has been a joy to watch grow into the person God defined her to be before she was born.  As you can imagine, since Bekkah was born in the operating room there were some complications present that warranted this precaution but as time passed the tense time faded and she was born naturally and all has been well ever since, minus a few experiences in the emergency room along the way.  In all of the delivery processes Bonnie remembers the pain of the deliveries but at the same time cannot fully remember what it did to her during the delivery process.  This is a common remark from mothers, remembrance but no regrets what-so-ever.  The process of birth is a timing issue and when Rebekkah was ready to enter the world her life was now ready to emerge.  She had to pass through the curse of sin in order to take a breath, this is painful to everyone involved.  The pain is present but treatable but it must occur in order for life to go on.

In every birth setting with our daughters, there were some types of complicating factors that came into play.  The Scripture verse that is used for this article clearly claims this fact and that through the process of conception, the pregnancy time period, and in the birth itself.  This is a given for every birth that is performed around the world.  While some birth processes are easier than others some type of pain is involved during this process, as the ladies have found out there is nothing easy when it comes to this entire process.  When we look and study this verse we can see that there was a huge change in this process, whatever that process was when sin became the leader in our lives.  I find it so disturbing that we seek temporary or superficial responses to such improprieties that we have no control over, so why do we make choices that increase such pain instead of doing what we can to limit such aggressions?

What is God talking about here?  It is all about how we deal with issues that we have inherited and which direction we take things and God wants us to think about His plan first and take route instead of what the world offers; remember it is the belief in the world’s system that brought into our lives, Genesis 3:16.  There is an interesting portion of this Scripture here when it states that God will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception, because it suggests that the process of reproduction was different than what we know it today.  It seems like the process was easier and without any pain or sorrow which makes sense because when God created man and woman they were perfect in all ways so there would be no pain present in the beginning.  This is also a statement from God and one that since mentioned cannot change.  Yes, mankind has formed drugs to help the birthing process along and to limit such pain but the effects and results of such a process still to this day hurts the female when she delivers.  In other words, the birth process is no longer perfect but flawed and subject to the sinful life that we chose to incorporate into our lives.

Two words here that God wants us to understand here in this article and those would be the words “greatly” and “sorrow”.  The verse translated from Hebrew goes like this: “To the woman He said: I will sharply increase your pain in childbirth; in pain will you bring forth children.  Your desire [will be] for your husband, and he {will} rule over you.”  Now many modern day women have problems with this statement and to be honest the man has taken his role in this verse way too far by claiming physical authority over the woman on a single level.  This is not what God was mentioning here in the past portion of the verse and we have discussed such Truth from God before and it is the reason why we are not dealing with this portion of the Scripture today.  However, this last portion of this verse is very important when it comes to future health and overall well-being of the woman; the world shall NEVER teach this and will only mock it saying that this belief is antiquated, out-of-date, or just wrong on all levels of personal freedom.

The word greatly that is used here comes from the Hebrew word “harbah”.  As we see in the previous paragraph, the literal usage of this word means “sharply” and gives us a confirmation of the intensity of how this process in the woman would be from that point onward versus how they were before.  The definition of the word “harbah” is as follows: be or become great, be or become many, to make large, to multiply, increase, to increase greatly or exceedingly.  In any one of these descriptions that one wants to use for the definition of “harbah” it means that another level of completing the action of this word has become higher or greater than it was before and this word is used in the infinitive absolute which gives it a heightened intensity manner when it is used with a verb.  Clearly stating that there is now a huge difference in the way things were going to transpire from that time forward.  Also, with this usage of the grammatical definition of this word its meaning will be a certainty as well, not an if or maybe in presence.

The second word that is focused on here is the word “sorrow” and is correctly defined as pain and comes from the Hebrew word “issebownek” which is translated: pain, labour, hardship, sorrow, and toil.  This literally means a process that takes effort and one that is not easily rendered.  Like many of us, men know the process of giving birth looks very painful to us and we can only imagine what it must feel like when the true labor and birth process begins.  Being in the job I am in I have had plenty of opportunity to see and to hear women give birth and I can tell you that it is not a very pleasant setting, and it does not matter if modern-day drugs are on board or not, the entire process hurts and it takes a toll on both the woman giving birth and the baby that is born.  The overall process is tough and difficult so why would we wish to bring on added issues to the entire process and place grave shadows over our lives by obstructing such a process to its completion?

God is referring to the cessation of pregnancy, loss of the father of the child due to lack of commitment or acknowledgment, or any other physical and emotional stress process placed upon the mother and child.  There is no question that the processes of pregnancy and childbirth are hard enough when both father and mother go through them together but why add ripped relationships on top of such conditions?  The idea of sex is a thrown around term with advertisement after advertisement promoting free sex without any complications or consequences.  What many fail to admit or to recognize is that when the union of the two people is broken so goes the unity of the relationship; it does not matter if the couple is actually in a true relationship or not, when this act is enacted a relationship is born.  Producing a child is the epitome of life and God can only be represented by life.  Satan cannot be represented by life for there is no good in death.  So when a sexual relationship ends with a child being conceived, it is only fair that he/she gets the opportunity to live according to the result of such a union.  See, giving birth is a holy correction and one that our enemy cannot stand thus the reason why abortion and suffering sex is so rampant and popular to the world.  To put it plainly, when you take a baby from the womb you are adding an unnecessary stressor to the woman’s body, instead of allowing her to complete the term; in spiritual terms, when an abortion is committed it equals a death and death equals Satan which automatically promotes and progresses his kingdom of death not only in the woman’s life but for the life of the baby itself.

I understand that in a day and age where more seems to be better, that one would try to obtain every item they could in order to fit into the crowd they wished.  But it does not make any sense why we must add to something that is already been fixed and that we know is painful.  In no way at all, is God suggesting that we do not have children He cannot say this because it would go completely against His definition but He does want us to know that everything the world tells us is a lie and will add nothing but burdens to our existence.  There is a specific reason why Jesus said that His yoke is easy for He alone takes away the burdens of the world.  The good news is that God can help us with the decisions we make if we only keep Him first in our lives and seek His wisdom in every aspect of our lives we encounter.  Additions to our inherited burdens are not privileges but unincorporated weights that the world piles upon us, most of which are voluntarily requested.  God is showing us and telling us that this type of living does not have to be and that He loves us and He wants us to live under His Covenant and not the worlds.

This is the question that God wants to ask us: why do we wish more or added pain upon ourselves over a process that is already spiritually and physically cursed?  God is not talking about the result of the pregnancy but the attitudes and aspects to which we add to this process.  Not only does abortion immediately pop into our thoughts, but alcohol poisoning and heavy drug usage also play into this painful delivery process.  Domestic violence against the mother routinely crosses this small community’s emergency department and it is almost unfathomable to think about what goes on in a large city ED.  God knows that every aspect of this process hurts and is uncomfortable on good days, but it breaks His heart to know that we purposefully and voluntarily add to such an already painfully natural process.  It does not have to be like this, ladies please choose wisely who you wish to have sex with for it follows a pattern by which this initiative begins.  Choose a good man who will protect you, your body, and the baby not one who will be willing to kill such a prize just because it is an inconvenience or controlled method of lies.

Almost every day we hear something to the effect of “it is my body, my choice” and that is a true statement, but what do you gain when you rip out a life from the body?  No one ever states how hard it is after the procedure is complete, either on the body or inside your heart.  Then along comes the Church, and does nothing but condemn the woman for such an act, or it promotes her decision and allows her redemption without any support or teaching.  Both instances are wrong, for the Church should understand and promote life at all costs and when a woman comes to the Church the leaders should be supportive of the woman and not the procedure.  The Church has been another source of pain that women have endured over the years and it should not be this way.  The process of birth and of pregnancy is tough enough and while many of us limit this Scripture passage to just the physical pain category of the woman, it cannot be ignored that all areas of this subject are tied together since all aspects are present.  The current beliefs and teachings of the modern-day Church are bad enough when it comes to such dealings, why compound these pains with not doing our best to correct the situation and also doing our best to teach these wonderful yet devastated women the correct path of life through God?  And as one says the “it is my body, my choice” statement, kindly remind them that adding a consequence to an already inherited consequence does not come from God but from the world.  God wants no suffering from His children, and this Truth should be the focus of our mission.

DLB