If you'd like to watch, click on Pastor Squatch Musings!

“When a woman is giving birth, she has pain, because her hour has come. But as soon as she delivers the child, she no longer remembers the anguish for joy that a child is born into the world. Therefore you now have sorrow. But I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”

John 16:21–22, MEV

Jesus’ words of comfort to His disciples are also intended to help us in our sorrows and sufferings. There will be times of grief, fear, struggle, mourning, uncertainty, sadness, and so on, but our Lord is always close at hand, and it is with this joy we can continue. Joy is a sense of peace and hope that only comes in the pure knowledge that our Lord Jesus Christ is always near us and all things we can lay at His feet and know His mercy. As the words fail and tears fall, we can still feel a buoyancy in our hearts because we know who has the final say. As loved ones sit in faraway hospital beds, we can be troubled and peaceful in the same moment because we can walk in confidence that our Lord will carry us through it all. This is the power of our Lord because as long as we walk on this mortal coil, we will know grief and sorrow, but like a mother feeling the pains of childbirth, we too will come to the fullness of our Lord and be surrounded in His peace.

Let us pray. I thank you, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, your dear Son, that you have kept me this night from all harm and danger, and I ask you to protect me this day also from sin and every evil, that in all I do today, I may please you. For into your hands, I commend myself, my body and soul, and all that is mine. Let your holy angel watch over me, that the wicked foe have no power over me. Amen.