Suffering and the Resurrection

It's Friday, but Sunday is coming. I went into labor on Good Friday unexpectedly as I guess most people go into labor unexpectedly. My hour had come and with it much, much pain. The number of verses in the Bible that compare sufferings to the pains of childbirth is astounding. They jump out at me now as I read the Bible daily because I can feel them.

Labor was incredibly painful for me possibly intensified by PIT and no medication and an end I did not want. I don't think I thought of the birth that was coming from the labor, the joy that was coming from the sorrow, the Resurrection that was coming after the Cross. John 16:21 When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.

I am very thankful that a week after Easter, I heard an incredibly powerful message by Gary Habermas. It was one of those times when you hear something at the exact moment you need it. I was still questioning why things happened the way they did and wallowing in the pain of my labor experience intensified by hormones.

Dr. Habermas gave an address on the resurrection unlike any I had ever heard. It was incredibly applicable to our lives and deeply moving because of his own story of unexpectedly losing his wife to cancer at a young age. ***UPDATE: This is the message I heard*** It builds as it goes, so I highly recommend that you listen to his message in entirety on Suffering and Doubt (HERE...click play Jutebox)

Where would you be if it weren't for the resurrection of Jesus? Gary was asked by one of his former grad students during his worst kind of suffering he could imagine (his wife suffering and dying of cancer), "Did God raise His Son from the dead?" God watched while his Son died the most agonizing death you can think of. Do you expect better than Jesus received, God's only son? Should we suffer less than Jesus?

Another key take away from his message that he says is what you will spend thousands of dollars for modern psychologists to tell you---The most painful thing that will happen to you is not what occurs to you, its what you tell yourself about what occurs to you. After that message, I did not feel anguish over my c-section again. I stopped telling myself negative things about what happened. Instead I counted my blessings one by one. I acknowledged that the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh, blessed be the name of the Lord. I took hope in the resurrection.

Quote for the Day: "This is a world where we suffer and a world where we dont always know why things happen. But this a world where there is a resurrection and a world where there is a heaven." Gary Habermas