The blessed curse of pain in childbirth

One of my early childhood memories that has stuck with me into adulthood is the day our pregnant cat started acting funny. I followed her into my bedroom where she made herself comfortable right in the middle of my bed, and started giving birth. I think within an hour or so the whole ordeal was over, and she was licking her kittens clean as they were nursing.

It really seemed like no big deal to her. There might have been some discomfort, but I've seen cats in pain (ten kids and a cat, you do the math), and what I saw on that day looked nothing like a cat in pain. Since then I have learned that this seems to be true for most animals. The only creature who seems to consistently experience any significant pain in childbirth is the human.

We find the reason for this difference in Genesis 3, as God deals with Adam and Eve after they have introduced sin into God's perfect creation. We refer to it as "the curse", and rightly so because this is where God "breaks" his creation, subjecting it to futility, pain, corruption and death as a physical picture of the spiritual reality that just took place.

Hang with me here, because this is the part that most people don't get: As such pictures, each of the curses that is put on creation, and on humans in particular, also serve us as blessings. It is God reaching out to us in our fallen state, saying "Look around you. This is what sin is like. Now come back to me". For example the curse for the man was strenuous work, pointing to the labor under the law to please God, with the sabbath as a day of rest to point to the new covenant of Grace ushered in by the death and resurrection of Christ.

A few months ago, when I found out my lovely wife was pregnant with our first child, among the many thoughts that entered my mind were these words from Genesis 3:16:

To the woman He said,"I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; (...)"

To a woman there is really no other blessing in life that comes close to the experience of becoming mothers. Why did God attach a curse of pain to it? Certainly it was not out of malice. What is the spiritual reality that God wants to show us by drawing a picture of the greatest blessing in a womans life resulting from excruciating, unbearable pain?

We find the answer in Romans 8:18-23, where God explains it all to us:

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 

For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 

For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.

So from these verses we can derive a list of at least three things that God is teaching us through greatly multiplying the womans pain in childbirth:

• That the world after the curse is a place of excruciating pain and suffering.
• That this suffering is not in vain. It is the pains of a birth process that will result in a new creation.
• When all things have been restored to their right order, and the pain is over, we will look back at it like every mother looks back at her birth with her newborn baby in her arms saying even if it was ten thousand times worse it still would have been worth it.