Meditations on our Gospel Reading or John was not a Mother

In celebration and memory of giving birth to my daughter Colette

June 29, 1986

  

“Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy. When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world.” (John 16: 20-21)

I read this Gospel message on Sunday. It was part of our lectionary reading for Trinity Sunday and I knew that this wasn’t true as I read it. Women do remember and I remember actually writing in my journal in the wee hours of the morning shortly after delivering my beautiful baby girl in less than ½ hour that the pain was unbearable. I wrote about wanting to get off the table and calling the whole thing off. I wrote about wanting pain killers but was told I was too far along. I pleaded that even though I took the Lamaz class it was OK with me to use drugs. I wrote in permanent ink about the pain so I would not forget in case I decided to do this again. Afterwards I couldn’t help thinking that each person I met went through some process like this in being born. Each mother I met I blessed for this shared pain.

You see I came into the hospital 9 centimeters dilated and went immediately into transistion. My husband was disappointed we didn’t get to practice all the breathing exercises we had practiced for weeks. I was freaked out that the class hadn’t really cover “transistion” for fear we might accidentally go there in class.

So I am here to say that women do remember the pain and we remember the joy too. They are part of the same imbilical chord. They are twins. And equally important theologically, joy does not cancel out pain. It comes forth in spite of the pain. It comes in and through the pain. Telling people that you won’t remember the pain is not only false; ask any mother who has had natural childbirth, it reinforces a theology that diminishes the power and purpose of pain.

In the middle of the birthing ordeal when all I wanted to do was scream and have this over, the ever kind and patient nurse said something I will always remember. She said, “Honey, you can scream as much as you want but the pain you are experiencing is the baby moving down the birth canal. Imagine this movement like a wave rolling to the shore. Ride it, honey, ride it in.” This helpful advice changed everything. I rode those waves in until the head emerged and she came out with her own screams of terror and joy. The pain was my own body contracting and opening, pushing out new life. The pain itself was good and redeeming.

So how do the facts of how real women give birth challenge a theology of pain forgotten in favor of a greater joy? I think it suggests that joy comes not from forgetting but rather moving through. There is joy in the movement not just the outcome. Don’t get me wrong. There is a joy like heaven on earth to hold your baby girl in your arms but there is also a joy in knowing, in experiencing your own body and spirit making the way possible. One does not diminish or cancel the other.

The good news, then, is that the process of giving birth is painful and beautiful because it hurts to expand our boundaries, to allow a new being to come forth. It should never be forgotten. Remembering this makes other painful events and times bearable because it reminds us that this is how new life comes to us.

Happy Birthday Colette. Your birthday is also mine. Together we entered a new life. May we both always remember that the pain and the joy are intertwined, that they both serve us.