Hope, Purpose and Enduring to the End

Most of you know that since my last post, I have given birth to a beautiful son. I've always been a natural, no drugs kinda girl. I believe God made my body to be able to do this and women have been giving birth since the beginning of time, so I should be able to as well. I did okay with my first one and so I thought I would be fine with this one, too. Well, everything went okay until the end and I sort of panicked when I felt the pain, which was worse this time. The only choice I had was to go on and finish. It didn't matter that I was exhausted or felt that I didn't have the strength or capacity to handle it. I had to get my son here and no one else could do it for me. Of course, once I was holding him, I forgot the pain and felt the sweet joy and relief that only a mother knows when her children are finally in her arms.

I have since reflected on the physical pain that so much of the human race has lived through. The pain of torture as a prisoner of war, the pain of chronic illness or disabling injury. People who have lived in past ages who had to undergo such physical hardship as I will never have to know. How could they have done it? Why do our spirits not flee our bodies in fear and shed the mortal shell to which they are bound? Where does the will to continue come from? The strength to keep fighting? I suppose Jesus Christ was the only being who really had the power to “commend [His] spirit” into the Father's hands. Even He shrank from the bitter cup with which He was presented.

There was a moment during my pain when I wept and mentally called on God for strength and help. I looked at my husband and it was as though my spirit received strength from him and from God. After that, I was able to do what I needed to do.
In those moments when the pain is excruciating, what is it that helps us through? My pain had a very clear purpose. But what about when there is no clear purpose? When we simply must have faith that God knows the purpose even if we can't see it?

I came to realize that the same thing that motivated me is what motivates any and all creatures to “endure to the end.” I had hope that my suffering would end and that it had a purpose: to bring one of God's beautiful children into the world.

Whether we know the specific purpose or not, as followers of Jesus Christ, we know that all our suffering is at the very least to teach us something and that we will not be given anything that we cannot bear. We have hope that no matter what happens now, all will turn out well in the end.

The scripture comes to mind, “Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.”