Thorns and Thistles

Hello, and welcome to my blog! I decided to revamp this site that I started several years ago. Writing is an outlet that brings me joy and fulfillment when I actually take the time to do it. It could possibly be described as a love-hate relationship for me. While the process often feels frustrating and exhausting, the product is satisfying to my soul. I find that I can be a very restless person when I haven’t put my thoughts into words.

The content of this blog will be different than before because I am now in a completely different stage of life with new experiences. I have graduated college, I have worked a full-time job, I am married, and I am expecting a baby very soon. I will likely write much about this new world of motherhood I find myself in. While the content will be different, I expect the style and the themes to be much the same as before. This blog will be prayerful and contemplative, focusing on a spiritual theme that comes to me from my daily experiences and my time spent in God’s Word.

Today I am meditating on the theme of labor. In my body, I experience a natural opposition to anything that seems difficult. This is not the way I was designed to be. Before the Fall, work was joyful and pleasant. God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden in order to act as stewards and guardians over it. We tilled the soil with ease. We were able to serve God without experiencing any kind of resistance, may it be internal and external. But after we sinned, the way in which we experience work drastically changed. Work was no longer easy and pleasant, but was suddenly met with pain and strife. On that dreadful day, the LORD God said to Adam, “cursed is the ground because of you; / in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; / thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field” (Genesis 3:17b-18). Likewise He said to the woman, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; / in pain you shall bring forth children. / Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, / but he shall rule over you” (Genesis 3:16b).

Writing this blog is met with its fair share of thorns and thistles. It requires effort. I have to think, rethink, type, and delete, over and over again until my work is ready to be published. Sometimes the formatting gets messed up and I have to start over. I likely quit blogging for this very reason. While beautiful and sweet, pregnancy is painful. I am heavy, cumbersome, and tired. Labor will be even more difficult and will likely be the greatest physical challenge I am ever met with as a woman. Likewise, submitting to my husband is challenging; I often resist the headship that God has placed over me, despite the fact that without it I cannot see where I'm going and I run into walls like a chicken with its head cut off.

None of this is as it was meant to be. While our work was supposed to be simple, it clearly is not that way any more. Because of the Fall, the tasks that are the most life-giving such as a woman’s labor or a man’s Garden-tilling have become the most aversive to us. But the joy is buried deep in those places if we are willing to put in the effort. We have to dig in and do the work despite whatever resistance we may experience internally or externally. I greatly admire my husband who consistently works with joy and dignity despite the great hardship he faces as a police officer. His job is mentally and physically demanding, and rarely receives praise. He joyfully and enthusiastically puts his own life on the line in order to protect the lives of our citizens, despite many people’s pushback against him and his colleagues. He somehow uncovers joy every night as he puts on his uniform and drives off to work.

All forms of labor are difficult, but must be done in order to find the joy. I am grateful that this is not as our work was meant to be nor how it will always be. “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). Together with Christ, will we endure today’s thistles in hope of what is to come?

LORD God, thank you for giving us the ability to do hard work with our minds and bodies. You promise that your “yoke is easy and [your] burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). While we do not always experience it in this life, we know that your joy and peace await those who persevere. Give us strength to push through and do what is good yet difficult. In Christ’s Name, Amen