Children are Painful: Week 3

Once upon a Curse STUDY

This Bible Study series accompanies my new book Once Upon a Curse. Today we expose the challenges with children, bad parents, our sinful will, and the lack of childbearing. This is an emotional deep-dive into the first half of the curse proclaimed to the woman.

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It was good. That man and woman would be fruitful and fill the earth. That a woman would have babies, and that new life would spring from her body. A man a made directly for this task, and completely complimented by a woman. Their bodies fit perfectly together for the ultimate act of union, joining, in pleasure, in purpose, in the needful creation of new life and breath. Man and woman were certainly made in the image of God, and given His unique ability to bring forth another creature. This was very good.

Women and men, together, have been crafted to do something amazing. By their flesh and blood, they are the cause and vessel by which every new life is created. And it was supposed to be wonderful. It was supposed to be easy. It was supposed to be joyful and fulfilling.

READ Genesis 1:27-28, 31

What was woman created for?

READ Genesis 3:16

What is the changed reality because of the woman’s curse?

Sin-wrecked bodies now wrestle to live in this world in response to the new reality brought on by the curses. The hurt is real, that we now only hear from the story in the Garden. A clear and present mark of the punishment for sin certainly includes pain in childbearing. The torment of another body ripping and tearing through her own, to gasp for new life. The pain a woman may endure, emotionally expectantly, when childbearing is not fruitful, and she is left lonely. The pain that her children will inflict on her years and years after they have left the inherent protection of her womb and arms. The pain of shameful regret and hatred when an unwanted blessing graces her womb. Childbearing hurts at every turn.

READ Genesis 3:9

What did God do in response to his people’s sin?

After taking the forbidden fruit in the Garden, God was angry. He was sad. He was regretful. Father and mother had shared an unholy meal excluding God, spurning His good word and His good laws. They ignored and disobeyed their Creator. They became a legion of gods unto themselves, declaring war by choosing their path forward. By this, God’s children earned death for themselves and their families. But God did not leave his people alone.

God wasn’t finished creating Adam and Eve. Consequences, sadness, and suffering, they made for themselves. But God hadn’t stopped giving. For woman, He told her to look at the very thing that would hurt her the most. Childbearing. The blessed new life from her body, would rip, break and burden her conscience, sting her with regret until death took them. Yet her hope for redemption would have to rest in childbearing. In the trials, she would surely endure because of her curse.

READ Genesis 3:15, 20-21

How did God promise to save His people?

After their great sin in the Garden, Adam took the hand of the woman, and gave her a new name. Her name reminded them both of this salutary paradox. Her body of death, who chose and betrayed the Creator of all things, will be the very body that brings forth life. The first life, all life, the life that would be eternal life. Her new name “Eve” meant mother of all the living.  And truly she would be.

The foretold promise from God echoed in the middle of the cured reality. Man and woman repeated this promise to each other and to the generations that would come after. An offspring would crush the head of the serpent that deceived them. God promised.

READ Genesis 4:1-8

What is the story of the first “promised offspring”?

Adam and Eve must have believed that one of their boys was the promised one. Both assumed that God gave a child who was the immediate answer. The solution, the one who would crush the head of that lying serpent. The one who would finish the reign of evil, which lead this family into painful exile. So the struggle was worth it if this offspring could restore the good unblemished world that Adam and Eve lost. If one of her sons was the one to restore the primary beauty of God’s creation. If one of these painful children was the answer to all of their disappointed prayers.

Proud as Eve was, discouraged as she was, finally there came a day when her beloved sons went too far. Jealousy overcame this freshly turbulent household. One quiet day, Eve couldn’t find her grown-up baby boy.