How struggles relate to childbirth

I was on the phone with someone last night, talking about the subject I had recently blogged about and my struggles, when he advised me something along the lines of the following: You just gotta pray about it, give it all to God, and push through the tough times.

I replied scathingly, "Sounds like childbirth, at least from what I know: Extremely painful."

He then wisely replied, "Yes, but don't you bring the most beautiful thing into the world after?"

This struck me as so true... Through the pain of childbirth, women bring new life into the world. Is this not the same as our struggles? Through the pain of struggles and pushing through them with God's strength and blessing instead of trying to escape from them or hide in fear, we bring new life into the world, too: new life within ourselves. We grow from these experiences like how a grassy savanna quickly and successfully grows after a fire. New opportunities present themselves as we align ourselves with God's will through the struggles. New beauty awakens in our souls as we experience hardships and carry them with grace given to us by God.

Of course, this never means it's an easy thing, does it. I see all of this and I still think to myself, "I'm hurting right now. I want out. It's not a good feeling." But sometimes God's way out of a situation is not to go around it, but to go through it, trusting Him faithfully and relinquishing our grasp of everything we have been holding on to, giving it to God instead. After all, nothing we have is our own; it's all His, down to our very lives, once we have accepted Christ and chosen to follow Him the rest of eternity.

Again, it's never easy. It's not painless. But it's freeing, and it allows God to have His way with our lives. I can't think of anyone more trustworthy and all-knowing than the King of the universe. When we're in His hands, we're in the safest place we could possibly be, even while chaos reigns around us.