Beginning of Birth Pains

Tents of Mercy Congregation

Kiryat Yam, Israel

The flowery pink hijab delicately framed her face, every fold precisely held in place, while the loose end flowed down her back dancing ever so slightly in the spring breeze. For over six months we’ve been together in the college classroom where we are learning to be doulas (a childbirth coach). Fariha is from a Muslim village up North. We are the same age, have the same number of children, and have both ventured into this new profession at the same time. Walking to my car, we both sighed; today’s lessons were about breastfeeding preparation. It was bittersweet to be reminded of the precious years when our now adult children were dependent on our very bodies for their nourishment.

Every week Fariha runs to hug me, getting in a short chat before class: “My mother’s surgery went well, inshallah, how about your daughter?” “Yes, she got time off from the army for the holiday! Baruch Hashem!” The interactions are sweet and natural. When I drop her off at the bus stop, she hugs me goodbye and wishes out loud that we lived closer. 

Early in the war, when classes were cancelled, our group chat was busy with messages of concern, checking to see whose towns and villages had been hit by missiles. We eventually resumed studies by Zoom and were interrupted often by missile sirens. One day when we reconvened on screen after a missile attack, the teacher sent a picture of huge missile shrapnel that had just fallen in her yard.

It is unique and powerful to be learning this birthing profession in Israel, Arab and Jewish women studying together how to help women bring forth life in a land where questions of life and death are central to the conflict. Israel is one of the world’s leaders in infertility treatment and obstetrics, facilitating new life even in medically complicated situations. Ironically, in doula training, we are learning to help women reclaim a more natural and ancient way of birthing — with modern medicine nearby if truly needed.

End Times Labor Pains

As my studies of labor and delivery deepen, I cannot escape how often Scripture compares the end times to labor pains. Yeshua said: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom… All these are the beginning of birth pains.” Birth pains are not death pains. They are pain that signals transition.

Pain is usually the body’s way to communicate that something is wrong. Sometimes it indicates growth — as my weightlifting son would say, “no pain, no gain.” As a society, we prefer to remove the pain, often disregarding the root cause. Labor and delivery are a prime example. 

Modern medicine typically optimizes labor, focusing on the comfort of pain-relief, the control of monitored mom and baby stats, the predictability of staff-paced interventions, and a short delivery. However, we must view pain as part of the process — not something to fear and endure but to harness and partner with.

Fear disrupts labor, tightening the body and creating resistance. Peace allows the mother to cooperate with what her body was created to do. She cannot stop the contractions, but she can learn to breathe instead of panic, to surrender instead of resist. As I learn to help women prepare for physical birth pains, I see the parallels to how we as believers are meant to approach the end times. Much of end-times discussion is dominated by fear, as though the goal were escape. Yet Scripture points toward a different posture: “When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

The goal of labor is the life that it is bringing forth. Romans 8 says that “the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth.” Creation is not groaning toward death, but toward new birth. Yet, preparation cannot begin once labor becomes overwhelming. Advance exercises for physical, mental and even emotional readiness are effective and critical. Peace is practiced beforehand. Strength is built long before the hardest moments arrive.

Spiritually, the same is true. We cannot expect deep peace in shaking if we have spent years cultivating fear. We cannot suddenly endure if we have neglected prayer, Scripture, community, and trust. Preparation is not panic. Preparation is peace-filled readiness.

Labor involves real pain. It brings exhaustion, vulnerability, and moments when the mother feels she cannot continue. Yet birth also reveals hidden strength. Women often discover during labor that they are capable of far more than they imagined.

I believe the same will be true for the Body of Messiah in the difficult days ahead. As we learn to quiet ourselves and lean into the process – endurance, courage, and supernatural peace will emerge most clearly under pressure. And the birth pains we so feared will be revealed to have been signs that the Kingdom was nearer than we realized.

A woman does not labor alone. In the best births, she is accompanied by those helping her breathe, persevere, and remember what waits on the other side of the pain. The end times were never meant to be endured in isolation either. There was sweet evidence of this at our Shabbat service this weekend, whose attendance is slowly returning to normal after the disconcerting months of war. Talking to members I hadn’t seen for a few months; I could see and feel the encouragement of meeting again face to face and talking about war experiences. Sharing the labor experience also brings a special kind of closeness among mothers. 

As we watch the shaking in the world and experience firsthand the signs Yeshua spoke of, I find myself comforting my own heart with the same words I will use to support women in labor: 

“You may not know exactly how the process will unfold, but you can prepare. You can practice peace. And above all, remember that pain is not the end of the story.”

SUPPORT NOW