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Lexham Press - G. Smith Aubry

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109 pages

English

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Women are valued for their ability to bear children in many cultures. The birth process, though supposedly the most painful experience of a woman's life, is seen as a necessary evil to achieve the end goal of children and motherhood.And yet, in the face of a typically masculinized Christianity that nevertheless professes that women are equally created in the image of God, shouldn't childbirth--a uniquely feminine experience--itself shape Christian women's souls and teach them about the heart of the God they love and follow?Drawing on her own experience of giving birth and motherhood--and the conflicting assumptions attached to them, by Christians and the culture at large--Aubry G. Smith presents a richly scriptural exploration of common conceptions about pregnancy and childbirth that will not only help mothers and soon-to-be mothers understand how to think biblically about birth, but also walks them through how to put the ideas into practice in their own lives. Along the way, she shows all readers how to see God's own experience of the birth process--and how childbirth leads to a deeper understanding of the gospel overall.

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Publié par	Lexham Press
Date de parution	21 septembre 2016
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781577997399
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	3 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0360€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Holy Labor
HOW CHILDBIRTH SHAPES A WOMAN’S SOUL
AUBRY G. SMITH
Holy Labor: How Childbirth Shapes A Woman’s Soul
Copyright 2016 Aubry G. Smith
Kirkdale Press, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225
Visit us at KirkdalePress.com or follow us on Twitter at @KirkdalePress
You may use brief quotations from this resource in presentations, articles, and books. For all other uses, please write Kirkdale Press for permission. Email us at permissions@kirkdalepress.com .
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ® , NIV ® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Scripture quotations marked ESV are from the ESV ® Bible ( The Holy Bible, English Standard Version ® ), copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible. Public domain.
Italics in Scripture quotations are the author’s emphasis.
Print ISBN 9781577997382
Digital ISBN 9781577997399
Kirkdale Editorial: Abigail Stocker
Cover Design: Christine Gerhart
For my children—Breckon, Kian, and Eden—in
whose births I’ve seen the glory of God.
And in memory of my mother, Pamela Grace Lambert,
who labored with God to bring me life.
Contents
Introduction
A Biblical Perspective of Childbirth
Chapter 1
Eve’s Curse and Our Narrative of God
Chapter 2
Image-Bearers of the God Who Gives Birth
Chapter 3
The Glory and the Gory in the Incarnation
Chapter 4
New Birth into the Kingdom of God
Chapter 5
Pain, Suffering, and Resurrection in Childbirth
Chapter 6
God’s Providence over Pregnancy and Childbirth
Bibliography
INTRODUCTION
A Biblical Perspective of Childbirth

“The Most Painful Experience in the World”
A strange feeling came over me during my Cell Biology lecture one October afternoon during my final semester of college. I hadn’t missed my period yet—it was due to come in four days—but somehow I knew it wasn’t going to come this month. When the lecture ended, I hurried to the nearest store to buy a pregnancy test. A few minutes later, the strange feeling was confirmed: I was pregnant.
I felt I was shifting—not just in the newly joined cells implanting in my uterus but in everything that made up my life. I was growing a new life in my body and preparing to bring it into the world. I could sense the significance, but I had no words for the experience. I was finishing my undergraduate degree in biology, but the scientific language I had learned about pregnancy and birth wasn’t quite sufficient. I was double majoring in Christian studies, but none of the theology books I had read discussed pregnancy or childbirth in depth. Searching for vocabulary and meaning, I spent those months in deep introspection, my hand on my growing belly in wonder. Despite my nausea, sciatica, and insomnia, the pregnancy was full of excitement and anticipation for both my husband and me. Would our baby be a boy or girl? What would our child’s personality be like—did these kicks and rolls give us any hints? How would our lives be changed, expanded, and enriched by this little human? Pregnancy and parenthood were bursting with possibility.
However, my thoughts concerning childbirth were different. If someone had asked me how I felt about childbirth, I would have said, “It’s the most painful experience in the world!” The only way I knew to view birth was through the lens of fear and pain. Veteran moms shared their war stories of excruciating contractions, hours of pushing, and emergency cesareans. Most women I knew chose an epidural, certain they could not handle the physical pain of labor. My own mother, who gave birth to five children, patted my hand and said, “Ask for Demerol. It’s fabulous. ” Everything I heard about childbirth was based in fear and the expectation of unbearable pain. These war stories confirmed my beliefs about childbirth: It’s the worst experience in the world, and a mother’s job is merely to survive it.
While not against pain relief (I’m no martyr!), I felt uneasy about this common understanding—that women could not bear what God designed their bodies to do. I fumbled as I tried to merge theological and biological information. It seemed a given that God had cursed Eve and her daughters with pain in childbirth for her sin—isn’t that what Genesis 3:16 says? Who can escape God’s judgment? I felt as if I should forego any pain relief during labor to avoid somehow thwarting God’s judgment-related purposes for childbirth.
Filled with dread for my due date, I decided on a medication-free birth, determined to grit my teeth and bear the pain to please God somehow. My first labor conformed to my expectations: My first childbirth experience was frightening and painful. I began telling my own birth war story to expectant moms, assuming all mothers were doomed to bear the agony of childbirth. In my conversations with expectant moms I perpetuated the narrative of an angry God inflicting horrific pain on women, possibly sealing their expectations—and experiences—of childbirth with the same dread and resignation.

Childbirth in the Life of the Church
Most women will become mothers, and many sense that from the moment of conception all the way through parenting, every aspect of their mothering matters. It’s a trend highlighted in recent years by increasingly extravagant birth-related celebrations in the West. The budding traditions of elaborate pregnancy announcements, clever gender-reveal parties, baby showers, blessingways (mother blessings), and whimsical photography of newborns and new parents signal more than that too many women are on Pinterest. These milestones—the discovery of a pregnancy, the revelation of the gender, and the transformation of a man and woman into a father and mother—are life-changing moments that should be celebrated.
The church should embrace these milestones and find meaningful ways to honor and celebrate birth. Beyond community celebrations, though, the church should consider the profound implications of transformation, new birth, and raising children—both literal and metaphorical—within the fold of faith. In general, the church has little to say to women preparing for childbirth. While women can bring their medical concerns to trained caregivers, where should expectant mothers take their fears, their desire to honor God in birth, and their questions about how to view a God who created childbirth this way? While resources on biblical parenting abound, there are virtually no resources for Christian women who want to explore the significance of childbirth through a biblical lens.
Instead, books—primarily by New Age or secular birth experts—teach them to find strength within themselves, look to their inner goddess, and form a cosmic union with the universe. While Christians recoil at such teachings, the practical birth advice given in many of these books is sound. Women who follow such advice often report reduced or no pain in childbirth as well as a satisfying, and even spiritual, transformative birth experience. While secular and New Age birth experts cannot promise easy labor for all women, they do promise more dignity and peace for the laboring mother than current Christian assumptions about childbirth provide.
Does the Bible have nothing to say about facing fear, suffering for the sake of bringing someone life, finding purpose in pain, experiencing peace, or childbirth in general? How should Christians view birth?

Childbirth and Theology
Throughout the history of the church, theology has been predominantly written and taught by men who overlooked the significant and prevalent theme of childbirth in Scripture. Worse, church leaders of the past taught that the childbirth experience was God’s judgment on women. The church often marginalizes today’s discussion about childbirth as a women’s issue, perhaps derisively so by those who have relegated it to feminist theology. Thus there is no robust theology of childbirth within the church.
Childbirth should be brought in from the margins. Every man and woman participated in childbirth as a child, and a majority of women have or will give birth. Men participate in conception, in supporting women throughout pregnancy, and, in the West, as supporters in childbirth. Men’s lives are also transformed through childbirth when they emerge as fathers. Childbirth is not exclusively a women’s issue. It’s a human issue.
Childbirth is theological—we understand God better when we understand childbirth better. The Bible is replete with rich birth-related descriptions of our God—who created birth, who cocreates with humans in conception and childbirth, who gave birth to and nursed Israel, who opens and closes wombs, and who himself participated in childbirth as a baby. Our theology concerning childbirth should cause us to ask questions about what we believe about God. Do we believe he is cursing women with pain again and again as a continued judgment for Eve’s sin? Is he pleased with birth? Angry? A helper in childbirth?
With its writhing and moaning and grunting, childbirth certainly seems excruciating and irredeemable, save for the baby on the other side. But many women from various cultures and times have a different view and experience of the power of birth. Many Christian mothers have experienced the same transformative power, but without a biblical perspective on birth they are left without clear language for this important part of their lives. In the process of creating a new life in their wombs, God is also re-creating the heart of the mother as she carries, delivers, and nurtures her child. The lack of biblical insight into the process of childbirth has left a void for many Christian women, who have little framework with which to process the effect of this extraordinary event on their s