Suffering | The Joy of Glory

I awoke at 5:45am to my wife telling me she was in labor and immediately I knew…this was not the same as before. Sure it was our third kid, but something in her voice said that was irrelevant. This morning was sure to be full of surprises. And, why wouldn’t it be? This entire pregnancy had not been anything like the other two.

Intense labor pains began to set in, and by the time we got to the van, I knew we had to hurry. As I climbed in the driver’s seat, Holly began to get into the back when a strong contraction hit! She grabbed onto the side of the van and spoke to me in a voice I had never heard come out of my wife before, “Jonathan! We are gonna have this baby NOW!!!”

She made it into the car, and the scene became something you would picture happening only in the movies. I threw caution (and the law) to the wind as I ran stop signs, doubled (even tripled) the speed-limit, and raced through Homewood. I must give props to the folks at Toyota…the Sienna is a mini-van with some real get-up and go power!

Throughout the drive, my foot grew heavier as my wife’s extreme pain became more apparent…via volume. This was different. Holly was able to receive pain medication with the first two and wanted to go natural with this one…natural would be the only option at this point.

I zoomed into a parking spot and rushed her upstairs as fast as I could. We didn’t fill out paper work or go through any normal protocol…there wouldn’t even be time for an IV. We were rushed straight into a room where the nurses tried to keep Holly from pushing until the doctor could arrive.

He made it, but barely.

Her water broke at 6:55am and just 22 minuets later, Talitha Mae Haefs made her way into the world at 7:17am.

Going through labor alongside my bride with no pain medication was a whole new experience. Never before had I seen her or another human being in such pain…and I’ve witnessed some pretty painful events in my day (just ask my brother). I felt so helpless, so lost, so useless as she thought her whole body was about to break.

During those minutes that felt like days, Genesis 3:16 went through my mind over and over, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children.”

Scripture was alive in the room with me.

I thought I had always understood this verse…understood why God determined that children should come into the world through pain. You see, as a result of sin, all humans have come under the judgment of of God and deserve death. We experience death gradually through pain and ultimately as our life expires.

I always thought that children were born through much pain as a reminder to us that every human comes into a world of pain, through pain, under the judgment of God. Every new life will experience pain and death in this world for we are all children of wrath by nature. I still believe that is true, but it is only half the truth. It is only half the reason for the pain in childbirth.

As I encouraged my wife through immense pain, the moment finally came…Talitha was here. In that moment…pain lost.

There was not only sheer relief, but extreme ecstasy and joy! The room filled with laughter, and my wife broke into a full on smile! This was the truth I had missed concerning pain in childbirth…

The pain ends and life wins.

Pain is not the last word of Genesis 3:16. The last word is life! “In pain (first word)…you shall bring forth children (last word).” You will go through incredible, unbelievable pain, but through this will come new life!

This is a small picture of the Gospel itself! Jesus Christ took all of our sin and its consequences of pain and death upon himself on the cross. He went through immense, incredible, intense pain (first word)! But, he rose from the dead (last word)! Through his death comes new, ultimate life.

The pain ends and life wins!

Pain and suffering are a guaranteed part of this life, but it is also guaranteed that they have ultimately been defeated by Jesus! And, just like in the delivery room where there came a moment when my wife and baby were delivered from pain to joy…so also will there be a moment for every believer in Christ when we are delivered from all trials into the everlasting arms of our father!

The pain will end and life will win.

For this reason, we can victoriously endure! Think about it like this…God gloriously designed the female body to endure birth pains for the joy that is set before them…so also, he has provided the power and grace for us to endure for the joy set before us! For a mom, birth pains lead to new life. For a believer, suffering leads to eternal life!

Suffering serves God’s glory and our good! Therefore ,we are MORE than conquerors when we suffer! Because Jesus not only guarantees that we will have victory over suffering (that makes us a conqueror), but victory in the midst of suffering for it serves our purposes to bring us to him (that makes us MORE than conquerors)!

Through suffering, we will know life…through death, we will know resurrection…because the pain will end and life will win.

Through Talitha’s birth, Jesus has taught me this truth ,and he will always remind me of it simply through her name. Talitha is Aramaic for “little girl.” It comes from chapter Mark 5 where Jesus raises a little girl from the dead with the words, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, get up.”

When Jesus speaks, death loses.

The name Talitha reminds me that God is in the business of calling forth life from death. He will bring us through pain and suffering by his power and grace, for his glory, and the joy will be ours! Everlasting joy that will overshadow all the pain.

As I go through suffering in life, Talitha helps me remember that Jesus is with me, working a miracle of resurrection for his glory and my good. Talitha helps me remember that pain is not the end and that death does not get the final word.

Talitha helps me remember that the pain ends and life wins.

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May 15, 2013

Learning to Rely…

*Mother’s Day is difficult for many. Guest blogger Meg McClung shares her testimony of learning to rely on God as she struggles with the desire to be a mom…

Josh and I got married almost 7 years ago. We were 22. We wanted to start a family around 26. Have 3 or 4 kids (close together) and be finished having kids in our early 30s. It sounded like a good plan to us!!

But after trying to start our family, we ran into some setbacks. Nothing happened.

That was 4 years ago. After seeing a specialist and being told pretty much nothing was wrong, we were given the option of fertility treatments. We prayed and fasted and heard from the Lord, “No”. So we began praying and talking about adoption – something we’d wanted to do (eventually) from the beginning of our marriage.

After waiting on God for about 6 months, we finally felt like we had the go-ahead in September of last year. We found an adoption agency and started pursuing domestic adoption. We were fully approved at the end of April and are now waiting to be chosen by a mom.

This is the first Mother’s Day that hasn’t been really hard for me in a long time – I finally feel like an expectant mother. But that wasn’t always true. When we first started trying to have a family 4 years ago, my life was full of disappointment. Every month, and every time a friend, acquaintance, stranger got pregnant. I held on to this verse in Proverbs (13:12) – “Hope deferred makes the heart sick; But a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” I thought this verse gave me an excuse to have pity parties and be heartsick about not being pregnant.

Around 2 years ago, I hit a breaking point.

When a friend got pregnant and was upset about it, my jealousy and anger reared it’s ugly head. It shocked me how mad I was about it. I knew bitterness would soon follow and I couldn’t go on living that way. I talked to my family – my mom and sisters and close friends – then I turned to the Lord and asked Him to deal with me. He used that verse in Proverbs to teach me something about Hope. I had been putting my hope in having a child. And because that desire was unfulfilled, I was heartsick.

But even if I had gotten what I wanted, it wouldn’t have been the tree of life. I’m sure a lot of you are familiar with that – we hope for something for a long time and when we get it, we aren’t really happier or more joy-filled than before. That’s because those things don’t bring us life. Psalms 4:6, 7 says ‘There are many who say, “Who will show us some good? Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord!” You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound.’

See, my desire was directed toward the wrong thing. Through this process, the Holy Spirit has revealed to me that my Hope is in Christ. That my desire should be for Him. And when my hope is in Him and my desire is for more of God – that will not disappoint. HE is the tree of life.

Some people have told me that as soon as we have a baby through adoption, we’ll get pregnant. And maybe that will be true. But that’s not the reason we’re adopting and God isn’t holding out on us. He isn’t withholding children now and if we wait long enough or well enough, we’ll eventually get what we want. The truth is that what He has for us is so much better than what we want for ourselves. And that is because what He has for us is Him.

I’m sure a lot of you have heard it said – or even said it yourselves – “God will never give you more than you can handle.” I can tell you from experience that that isn’t true! There have been so many things over the past 4 years that I could not handle. I haven’t doubted God’s goodness and I believe that He gives us, His children, good things (Matthew 7:9-11). But there were a lot of times when I’d think I was pregnant and wasn’t, or someone else would get pregnant and not me and I’d say to myself, “God, that’s just mean.”

What I meant was, “I cannot handle this. I’m not strong enough.” And in those times, I would turn to the Lord and ask Him for truth. And He’d remind me not to compare myself to others because what He has for my life is different and better than I can imagine. And He’d remind me to hope in Him.

Paul experienced persecution and hardship beyond what I can imagine, but I can relate to what he writes in 2 Corinthians 1, “For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again!”

He talks about relying on God again in chapter 12, “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

It was in those really hard times that I learned that to be weak is to be strong because it’s in those times that I have to rely on the Lord. As humans, we try to avoid hardship and persecution because it’s uncomfortable and we want to go into self-preservation mode. But as believers, we should welcome hardship because it’s then that we understand His strength. It also teaches us about Hope. In Romans 5: 3-5, Paul says: But we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

In the last few years, Josh and I have had a lot of hardships but I can honestly say that they have been the best years of our lives. I know that God is good, no matter what happens.

Even if we never have children, God is good.

Just being able to share with you what God has done in my life is a testimony to His goodness. If we have walked through this just for the opportunity to comfort you with our story of God’s faithfulness, it is enough. In 2 Corinthians 1, Paul writes, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” That’s a lot of comfort!

I hope that my story blesses everyone who has an especially hard time on Mother’s Day and encourages all of you to desire more of God, to hope in Him, and to daily rely on His strength, because we are always weak!

*You can keep up with the McClung’s adoption journey by following their blog.

May 11, 2013

The Pains of Childbirth

Disclaimer: I am not an expert on this subject.

Even typing the title of this blog makes me more than a little nervous that I will incur the righteous wrath of women everywhere. How could I, a male, possibly have anything to say about the pains of childbirth? But, hang with me for just a moment and hopefully things will make sense.

My beautiful bride is currently pregnant with our third child. Full…term…pregnant. She technically is not “overdue,” but both of our previous children came quicker than this third, stubborn kid. Needless to say, she already expected to be done.

This morning I awoke at 5am and rolled over to see her staring at the ceiling. Without even turning her head she said, “I have been awake since 3:30am having contractions…I think this might be it.” Yet, as time passed the contractions died down and so did our excitement.

More waiting…

The waiting is killing her (and me, though not at all in the same way) and she longs so badly to have and hold this kid that she literally is disappointed she is not yet in the full throttle pains of childbirth.

Her deep anticipation of joy has prepared her to persevere through the pain.

In Romans 8, the apostle Paul uses birth pain/anticipation language to describe the current state of all creation. He writes, “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now (vv 19-22).”

Because of the humankind’s plunge into sin, all of creation is broken! It has been subjected to futility under the righteous judgment of God. But, there is a hope that it will be set free! And, creation is currently groaning with the pains that are akin to childbirth. Like a mother is enabled to endure labor for the joy of a coming child, so creation groans through the current curse of sin and death, longing for the joyous day of new creation! Creation is waiting.

But there is more…

The next thing Paul says is absolutely mind melting. Romans 8:23, “And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”

Christians are groaning like creation.

We are waiting…in pain…in anticipation…and the waiting is killing us…literally.

Like a mother in labor waiting for the birth…We are all in the midst of pain and suffering waiting for redemption.

We know this…we feel it everyday. Pain comes through physical, spiritual, and emotional avenues. Suffering is the one experience that universally connects all people. We all suffer.

Yet Paul says that, as Christians, we can lift our eyes and look beyond our suffering to a future day of glory…a day when our bodies, through which we experience all pain, will be redeemed. He would have us look to a coming day of joy…a coming day of glory!

Why? What good does a focus on the future do us now?

It does us endurance-enabling good! Just like a mother endures labor pains for the joy of a child set before her…just like creation endures futility for the joy of new creation set before it…so we endure the pains of this life for the joy of completed redemption set before us!

Did not Jesus endure the cross for the joy that was set before him? God empowers our endurance in the same way…with the joy of glory! Romans 8:18, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

So often all I can see is my present pain and I begin to despair. But, I am to look to Jesus who is with me in the midst of pain and in whose presence I shall spend eternity! Through the joy of that truth God empowers endurance and makes me more than a conqueror amidst all my suffering that cannot separate me from Christ!

All of a sudden, I kind of understand my wife’s longing for the pains of childbirth to come. It’s not the pain she longs for, but the joy on the other side…and the deep anticipation of joy has prepared her to persevere through the pain in the present!

That is the way God empowers us to endure…through the present joy of future glory. The promise provides power in the present.

That is the joy of glory.

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison…
2 Corinthians 4:17

The Joy of Glory

Category: Suffering

May 21, 2013