by Kristin Chessrown
Genesis begins in darkness, then God speaks.
He brings forth life.
He breathes life into Adam.
He made Eve from Adam’s side.
And the three live happily ever after,
until…
a snake starts running his mouth and disrupting their lives with his lies…
and we fell for it.
We’re left with a broken relationship.
(and a God who loves us terribly despite that…)
His parting words to His children have been weighing on my heart lately.
He told his daughter Eve about the pain that was coming from childbirth:
To the Woman He Said.
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor, you will give birth to children.”
~Genesis 3:16
He told Adam about the pain he’d suffer working for food for the rest of his days.
If we read too quickly, we see only the pain we’ve earned through the fall.
(& we fault God for it more often than we should..)
But don’t you warn your children about the pain and dangers of this world too?
Don’t you teach your daughter about her body and the pains it will suffer?
So our Father had to tell us about the pain because He was telling us the cost we’d be paying to bring life into this world and we wouldn’t be the only one.
Breathing life into Adam’s lungs, forming his precious Eve from His side…
cost God everything.
It would cost Him dearly to restore this relationship with us. He would endure unimaginable pain, cut off from His Son for a shattering moment of intense darkness as Jesus took the cost of all sin upon Himself. Yes, it would cost Him.
But you were worth that cost.
Bringing life to a world as broken as ours is going to cost us something too.
As women, we pay different costs, because we bring about life differently.
God understood this difference and pulled each child aside and warned them specifically.
Your pain is specific to Him.
Our hearts are going to break sometimes.
We’re going to have to lay down our pride.
We’re going to have to let go of our insecurities.
We’re going to have to be uncomfortable, inconvenienced, and occasionally hurt.
The life you bring into this world is unique to you and precious.
God will use you to bring light to the darkness and life where there is none.
But bringing forth life always comes with a cost.
And those who will be impacted by your love, light, and life are worth it.
They are Beloved.
They are worth that cost.