While they were there, the time came for her Child to be born. And she gave birth to her firstborn, a Son. She wrapped Him in swaddling cloths and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn…

Luke 2:6-7

While they were there, the time came for her Child to be born. What a nice, sterile way to describe the sweat, tears, relentless pain and full body experience of childbirth.

As I write this, one of my good friends is in labor. She is checked into the hospital, changed into her gown, IV inserted, and waiting for the true labor to begin. She’s excited, nervous, eager… and terrified. She knows that in a few short hours, her world is going to contract into one hard, irrefutable reality: Pain.

Bearing a child is a completely physical endeavor. Your body changes. Grows. Makes you vomit and wake up drenched in sweat. It gives you lighting pain down your legs, steals your sleep, and robs you of your appetite for anything other than carbs. Birth is a miracle, but it is also work. Hard work. Work that gets painted with a rosy tipped hue, because if we were honest about the reality of pregnancy, the human species would be in dire threat of extinction.

Birthing anything- an idea, a new business, a revolution, a calling- requires pain. Sacrifices must be made to make room for the new life to arrive. When God chooses us as a vessel for a new birth, we are stretched. We lose sleep. We labor and push and feel as if the new beginning may be the end of us. And in a very real way, it is. There is no going back, life is forever changed. Whether that is by a baby or by a more cerebral new life, the act of bringing something forth changes us.

And yet, labor is also, undeniably, an adventure. Both times I brought my babies into the world, it felt… epic. An experience deserving a story, a retelling, a mark of honor. It feels heroic.

Bearing God’s invitation on our lives is an equally noble undertaking. One that involves pain, but one that transforms us into before and after. Allow the truth of that reality to wash over you today, and let that be a benediction.