Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Are you discussing among yourselves what I meant when I said, ‘A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’? 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. So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. On that day you will ask nothing of me. Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete. (John 16:19-24, NRSV)
This is a great passage, because it reminds me of a story I heard one day on the radio. The DJs were asking people about pain and how they dealt with it, and they got on the topic of kidney stones and child-birth. And a woman called in and said that the pain of kidney stones to her was worse than child-birth, because at the end of child-birth and all the extreme labor, she got to hold her child. There was a reward!
The kidney stone just passed and the memory of the pain was all that was left. Now one could possibly hold the kidney stone, but it is not the same as the child.
And that is the promise here. That the joy we will experience will be such greater than the pain we have now that it will not matter.
So endure the pain, knowing the joy will far out weigh what you are facing now!
aSacredRebel 