By: Pastor Jarren Rogers

There’s nothing quite like the birth of a child.

Mom carries this tiny human inside her belly for nine whole months–nine months of morning sickness, back pain, sleepless nights, and dizzy spells–until final the baby is ready to come. Extremely painful and time-consuming, the delivery is the natural end of the journey that Mom and baby have traveled together.

Until, finally, celebration, joy, and laughter. The baby is born.

It never ceases to amaze me, that despite the nine-month turmoil of pregnancy and the unimaginable pain of delivery, the words can so easily come from a woman’s lips: I think I’m ready to have another child.

Somehow, someway the pain and agony, waiting and hardship had been worth it the minute they laid eyes on their baby.

In John 16 Christ says the same thing of this life. It, too, brings hardship and pain. There are seasons in which it seems suffering lies around every corner. Death, disease, tragedy, and sickness. We live in a hurting, fallen, and broken world.

And yet, Christ says that one day, we too will think it’s worth it. To be alive, to live, to experience suffering and struggle through the brokenness of creation, it’s worth it. Because being a human, made in God’s image, means that we get to encounter our Creator. More than that, we are able to have a relationship with our Maker. We can love Him and He can love us back.

And even though we must experience heartache and pain, there will come a day when we will meet our God face-to-face. When we can look Him in the eye. When we can talk to Him and laugh with Him. There will be a day in which our creaking joints and sore bodies will be made new again. We will be restored along with the entirety of creation. 

It’s when Christ returns to make all things new that we will be able to reap what we sowed in life. We can spend eternity singing praises and glorifying God for He’s been good and faithful.

We’ll see deceased loved ones again and play with childhood friends. We’ll show our grandchildren how we can jump and frolick with them in our new and improved bodies and meet our spiritual ancestors for the first time.

All of creation will be lit with a bright light resonating from the throne room–the glory of the Son of God. And we’ll stand back in awe and amazement. We will see God’s glory in tangible and visible ways.

And our life filled with pain and sorrow, tears and suffering?

It will all have been worth it.