The Curse for Women

The sky grows dark and all the people fall completely silent as the Savior Cries “It is finished!” The earth quakes, and somewhere midst the crowd of people, a middle aged woman stands with a broken heart. He had been her Son – her first born – the child Who never did anything wrong, the One Who loved more than Mary believed possible. He had even loved those people that killed Him. Mary stood there, grief stricken, wondering why; why did He have to die? Why did she have to sacrifice the Son Who had always been so good to her? Why had Gabriel said that she was blessed among women?

Remembering Mary’s perspective recently struck me with a somewhat disturbing concept: the concept that God is constantly asking women to give up the people we love or the “good” things we want to God so that He can work out His purposes. Eve had to suffer the loss of Abel before God gave her Seth, Noah’s wife had to see her husband mocked when he was the only one doing what was right, Sarah had to be barren most of her life before she had Isaac, and Naomi had to move away from everything familiar and loose her husband and both sons before the beauty of Ruth’s faithfulness could be seen. And then there are those women that the Bible does not talk about, like the mothers, sisters, and wives of all the prophets.  What about King David’s mother? Just imagine how any mother would feel about her son battling a giant, being hunted across the countryside by the most important man in the nation, and finally becoming king. We may think it’s all wonderful looking back, but at the time, I am sure it was very hard and frightening.

That concept about women bothered me, that is, until something caught my eye about the curse for women the other day. In Genesis 3:16 God says to Eve, “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception . . .” (emphasis mine), which may indicate that He multiplied our sorrow and multiplied our conception (two separate things). I’ve decided to start looking at the original Hebrew/Chaldee wording and although I have not gotten very far yet, I haven’t proved myself wrong yet either. The verse translates out to: “arbe [I am increasing] otzbunk [grief of you] uernk [and pregnancy of you]”, so that could be the case.

I found this rather depressing quote on the topic of women and sorrow couple of years ago in the book Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton (definitely not a book I recommend): “Such is the nature of women. Such is the lot of women, to carry, to bear, to watch, and to lose.” (pg. 90). It is true that God is constantly asking women to give up those they love and part of the way God designed women was to be sensitive and motherly. Yes, the curse is not easy, but God uses it to work in our lives. I think that God knows how easily we, as women, can get wrapped up in other healthy relationships and almost forget about loving God. We start depending on other people, rather than the One we should always depend on, so He sometimes decides to take those people away from us. He doesn’t do it because He wants to be hard on people, especially women, but because He loves and is pursuing us individually. The world offers despair, but God offers hope and love.