A young man meets a girl. The whole world looks different when he sees her. Her voice reminds him of something he has been trying to remember all his life, and ten minutes’ casual chat with her is more precious than all the favors that all the other women in the world could grant. He is, as they say, “in love.” (Meditations in a Toolshed, C.S. Lewis)

Can you recall the enchantment? The intoxication of young love? Its gravity, its force, its demands? Perhaps we squint to remember what we thought we could never forget — the bottomless conversations, the nervous smiles, the rewatching in the mind moments just past. We may smile to ourselves, that was a lifetime ago. “Her voice reminds him of something he has been trying to remember all his life” — doesn’t that capture it?

But that was then. The spell wears off. The kids come. You’ve spent days and weeks and years together. You’ve seen her without the composure and the makeup; she’s seen you without the confidence and the strength. You’ve searched out this island called marriage; there is less to explore now. In love still, just a different kind. More realistic, we tell ourselves. The description above undergoes a revision.

A young man marries that girl. The world returns to normal a few years after. He seems to have remembered that thing that pestered him, and ten minutes’ casual chat with her seems next to impossible with young children. He is, as they say, “settled down.”

Much has been gained; something has been lost. You wish, at times, you could return to that first meeting, that first date, that first time telling her, “I love you.” The romance is still honeyed — when you make time for it. She is still beautiful, when you remember to really look at her.

She sleeps next to you now but seems, on some days, farther than ever. She is yours, but come to think of it, you miss her. You’ve grown: better friends, perhaps, better partners in the family enterprise, but are you better lovers? Has the poetry, requiring so much time and attention, turned into abbreviated text messages and generic emojis?

What a different vision for godly marriages the father of Proverbs hands to his sons:

Let your fountain be blessed,     and rejoice in the wife of your youth,a lovely deer, a graceful doe.Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;     be intoxicated always in her love. (Proverbs 5:18–19)

Husbands, “be intoxicated always in her love.” What a command. Literally, “be led astray” continually in her love. Be swept up. Lose track of time. Forget about your phone. Wander. Inebriate yourself with the dark-red of marital love.

Your wife, as the father crowns her, is a lovely deer and graceful doe. Do we need reminding? As familiarity threatens to blind us, as fights and frets and changing figures would cool us, the king bids his son memorize the lover’s irrepressible song, “Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart” (Song of Solomon 4:9 KJV). She, not the adulterous woman, must be his addiction.

Led Astray to Her

We need this command, don’t we? We are so prone to be led astray by lesser things; we whose passions can somehow weaken with possession; we who dull with acquaintance and brighten at novelty. We need a father to tell us on our wedding day (and then again at our ten-year anniversary), My son, be led astray continually to her — away from the tyranny of good pursuits or worldly ambitions — be intoxicated always in marital love.

“In a blur of married and modern life, are we still awake to our beloved?”

Has your pool of passions stilled? Many of us remember being implored before marriage, “[do] not stir up or awaken love until it pleases” (Song of Solomon 2:7). Natural sprinters we proved to be. Desires galloped prior to marriage — when Satan tempted and we ached while apart — but now that time pleases and heaven smiles down, how our love slouches and our once unsleeping passions can hardly keep awake past nine.

In a blur of married and modern life, are we still awake to our beloved? Do we only see the mother of our children? Will we never pause to really see her who is beside us on this grand adventure?

The wise father knows that our hearts, unwatched, grow blind to beauty. We think life unextraordinary — as we live on a planet spinning constantly, flung into a corner of the cosmos, revolving violently around a massive flaming ball — yet we yawn and call it Tuesday. But what is more wondrous still, we live with an immortal soul — in Christ, a coheir of the universe, a redeemed one, indwelt by the God who made everything. A Christian wife. The Alphabet of good husbanding begins with seeing her through faith’s eyes. That is why I suggest, we need to cultivate the habit of seeing her as the Scriptures teach us to see her.

Look at Her

The husband of the Song of Songs, drunk on anticipation and admiration, observes her as an artist bent over a portrait or as Adam waking to behold Eve,

How beautiful are your feet in sandals,     O noble daughter!Your rounded thighs are like jewels,     the work of a master hand.Your navel is a rounded bowl     that never lacks mixed wine.Your belly is a heap of wheat,     encircled with lilies.Your two breasts are like two fawns,     twins of a gazelle.Your neck is like an ivory tower.Your eyes are pools in Heshbon,     by the gate of Bath-rabbim.Your nose is like a tower of Lebanon,     which looks toward Damascus.Your head crowns you like Carmel,     and your flowing locks are like purple;     a king is held captive in the tresses. (Song of Solomon 7:1–5)

Now here, distinguish between descriptive and prescriptive. Charge not forth, good men, to describe your wife in this exact manner. But do learn from the husband’s focus, his alertness, his ever-attentive eye that surveys his bride in quiet wonder. Husband, what does your wife’s neck look like? Her smile in the morning? Her gentle spirit? Her strong convictions? Speak of them, perhaps sparingly, but notice them constantly. And when you do, thank God, the Artist, for what he is painting.

Keep Looking at Her

Does this sustained, admiring stare depend on the beloved’s appearance? Kept curves, bright teeth, ungrayed hair? Notice that the father teaches that the eye of the beloved does not recoil when it observes new wrinkles on skin, new wear and tear from everyday life. Look again at his charge,

Let your fountain be blessed,     and rejoice in the wife of your youth,a lovely deer, a graceful doe.Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;     be intoxicated always in her love. (Proverbs 5:18–19)

“Rejoice in the wife of your youth.” How old is she now? Youth is somewhere in the rearview; the wedding day a distant memory. Decades have passed, perhaps. “Always” is your delight and duty. There she is. You gaze over your morning coffee at her — what do you see? The wife of your youth, the wife of your reminiscences, the wife of your now and former days.

The world, so crude and boastful, would tell you that she, with chronic knee pain and doctors’ visits, is past her prime, perhaps even disposable. With its diseased and rasping voice, it points to the youthful employee, the pornographic magazine at the checkout counter, the woman running past in painted-on attire — behold, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. She will thrill you with the chase, satisfy you with fresher springs.

No, no, no, foolhardy flesh. I have my lovely deer, my graceful doe. She, no longer a youth, is better: the wife of my youth. We keep a most blessed fountain. Her breasts have not stopped filling me at all times with delight. No, no, no, O dark and devilish temptation, you have no mastery here. My God, by his grace, has given me himself and more; he has gifted me her. And though our stay in this body be brief, though our figures droop and drag and waste away, she is even more beautiful now (more Christlike than ever before), a companion no harem of illicit pleasure could rival. Be gone, all others, be gone! I am swept away — intoxicated — always in her love.

King Caught in the Tresses

Consider how closely Christ looks at his bride. How particular is he to pore over that beauty which he himself bestows upon her (and at what cost)?

Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:25–27)

His life, his crucifixion, his being “marred, beyond human semblance” (Isaiah 52:14), all so that he would watch her walk down the aisle toward him — “in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” before him. His eyes, keener than eagles’, survey her.

Behold, you are beautiful, my love;behold, you are beautiful;     your eyes are doves. . . .You are altogether beautiful, my love;     there is no flaw in you. (Song of Solomon 1:15, 4:7)

And then he, the perfect Groom, will call her from this cursed world,

Arise, my love, my beautiful one,     and come away. (Song of Solomon 2:10)

What Marriage Whispers

Marital intimacy, though not the Aphrodite culture would make her, is a precious gift. The father, while not merely pointing us to the marriage bed alone, is here bidding old lovers to drink deeply of the uncorked vintage of God’s design.

Marital sex, a lordly and bright sunlight, should itself bow. I believe we learn something of intimacy’s proper place from (of numerous other passages) a text that has always struck me as something of an oddity. Concerning the marriage bed, Paul writes,

Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. (1 Corinthians 7:5)

Contra many skeptical notions, intimacy, in normal circumstances, should be enjoyed and regular. Our lack of self-control and Satan’s sure temptations ground this dictate. The soak under the silver waterfall serves more than delight and unity; it serves holiness. Regular “coming together” builds a gleeful rampart against the schemes of the enemy.

But this was not the oddity. The oddity to me concerned what the couple might decide (together) to lay it aside for. “[Don’t] deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer.” It struck me as odd that the apostle considered prayer the alternative and the superior.

What does prayer as a planned interruption to the marriage bed suggest? It tells me that sex is a good and necessary gift for married couples from a good and gracious God, but not an ultimate gift. Sex was made for man, but not man for sex. Greater pleasures perch on higher branches. One might halt the lesser intimacy, might intentionally fast from the feast, for the higher and the greater — prayer. The prayer closet — the place of intimacy with God — holds higher rank.

Swept Away

Marital intimacy — with all its high glories and some crawling challenges (here left undiscussed) — samples wine from a coming orchard. Wine within this covenant challis is ultimately about blood-bought union with a covenant-keeping God. The mountain peaks, the ocean deeps, the untamed thrill, the transfigured moments of pleasure and beauty in a healthy married life exist for him (Colossians 1:16). Our union with him is not of one flesh as with a wife, but greater, of one spirit (1 Corinthians 6:17). Considering Ephesians 5:31–32, John Piper clarifies,

Leaving parents and holding fast to a wife, forming a new one-flesh union, is meant from the beginning to display this new covenant — Christ leaving his Father and taking the church as his bride, at the cost of his life, and holding fast to her in a one-spirit union forever. (This Momentary Marriage, 30)

Marital union sketches union with Christ.

So, husbands, look at her, keep looking at her, awaken slumbering summer, foment tidy sheets, cast down enthroned shams — and forgo this intimacy, at times, to pray. Be intoxicated always in her love, be led astray, and in that affection be swept away to a higher love, the love of Christ. Let her voice and her love remind you of what you’ve been trying to remember all your life.

“Use your words,” the voice said.

My scrawny nine-year-old arms were firmly wrapped in a headlock around my archnemesis classmate, Chris. We had been arguing about whose dad was better at bowling. Obviously, we had lost our ability to talk it out.

“Use your words!” I heard the voice again, this time louder. And again, very firmly, “Use your words!”

Just then, I felt my mother’s firm hand grabbing hold of my collar. She turned me around like a bridled pony. I released Chris to his own fate; now I faced my own.

“Listen to me, Joel Weldon!” she punctuated. “If you don’t learn to use your words, you’ll be struggling like this your whole life!”

God used that moment to motivate me. And now, after years of training and research, I’ve enjoyed a long path in communication, first as a touring singer-songwriter, then as a voice actor and speaking coach. I have found that the path to improved speech is available to each of us. It didn’t come naturally to me. I struggled and needed to work hard. But once I realized the power God gives through voices (including yours), I was hooked forever.

How to Use Your Voice

Take a moment and consider your voice. Do you “use your words” effectively? Do people in your professional and personal circles listen well when you speak, or are they easily distracted and disengaged? In front of a crowd or your church, are you able to connect and communicate? Do you see people scrolling smartphones as you work through your outline? It’s a common problem these days.

Have you overlooked your marvelous gift: your voice? Many have. It is one of the most undervalued and misunderstood instruments God has given. “Death and life,” Scripture teaches, “are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits” (Proverbs 18:21). But some Christians do not speak more often of the Life they know because they do not like the sound of their voice. The majority perhaps feel stuck and insecure.

Even in biblical times, many doubted their voices. Even a prophet as great as Moses was “slow of speech,” and he knew it well (Exodus 4:10). His inability plundered his confidence such that he even argued with God over it, giving five reasons he was a terrible speaker and couldn’t return to Egypt. God answered his fears by graciously providing Aaron as his official mouthpiece.

But what about us today? Believe it or not, with a few simple tweaks, you can start to improve your voice, and access its God-given potential. But how? Whether I am coaching a fresh class of voice actors or a ministry staff at a church workshop, I like to start with three basic concepts for effective speaking.

1. Be aware of your headspace.

Your emotional state of mind and your attitude are discernible in your vocal delivery. It’s not enough to just fake it till you make it. If you force a broad smile while internally you’re upset over a recent argument, you will come across like a salesman pitching his newest cure-all potion. This holds true for everyday conversations all the way to standing on the largest stages. The audience doesn’t just analyze your words; they feel and respond. They may not even sense something amiss, but your message will not have the effect you intend if you don’t have the matching attitude underneath.

Knowing how to control and gift-wrap your speaking with appropriate attitude is like a superpower for your ideas. If you’re in any kind of ministry, the attitude you draw upon is founded in the mind of Christ, love for hearers, and a desire to glorify God. You consider your high task: “whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God” (1 Peter 4:11).

Here’s a simple tip that I’ve used with countless students and clients. To give your mind and heart a reset prior to any conversation or talk, do a heart check. Is love for your listener (whether in personal conversation or speaking before many) a higher priority than what’s been distracting you? Is your desire for your audience that they truly hear and receive your words fully and powerfully? Then envision this simple formula: the word MISSION in all caps with the word me in lowercase set just underneath.

Write it on a note at your desk, in your notebook, in your Bible, on your iPad. It’s a simple perspective corrector. Yes, me is a part of the formula, but your MISSION is way more important than what others think of you, how effective your speaking is, or even your reputation. When your heart and mind are set on delivering your words for the good of others and the glory of God, rather than personal accolades, you’re reflecting the mind of Christ. And even if you stammer and fumble through much of your speech or sermon, your audience will still be moved by your very transparency, love, and care for them.

2. Stretch your voice.

From the time we’re cooing with our mother in the nursery and exchanging smiles and giggles, we are mirroring the world of speech and sound around us. We mimic; we copy; we try things we hear. That’s where regional accents and dialects come from. We’ve learned how to speak through immersive living and learning.

But something happens to many of us when we enter the world as adults. We throw our graduation caps in the air and enter adulting with the voices we’ve cultivated since birth. And then maybe we take a personality test that tells us who we are, replete with common personality traits and likes and dislikes. And we suddenly stop learning. We stop challenging ourselves in our areas of weakness. We allow someone else to define who we are and place a wall around our potential. Your voice is no exception. It needs some coaxing and training, but it can express and accomplish far more than most people realize.

Never stop learning how to maximize it. Consider the main sound elements of every voice that together make it interesting, even irresistible: pitch, pace, and projection.

PITCH

Remember the scene near the end of the movie Elf where Will Ferrell is reading his book to the kids in the library? “Past the sea of swirly gumdrops, and through the Lincoln Tunnel!” He animates his voice to give the story the big effects and exaggeration that children respond to so well. If you have kids, or you once were a kid, you know what I mean.

For some strange reason, we grow up and believe we need to lose the kid’s tone. But really, instead of discarding it, we need to adapt the same voice variety and character to mature material. Of course, the overexaggeration will be tamed a bit, but the voice should stay interesting to the listener. And pitch variety, or inflection, in your tone is a proven attention keeper.

Practice by reading aloud any material, pretending you’re reading it for children in a kindergarten class. Move your voice pitch up and down. Practice getting excited and letting your voice rise dramatically in pitch. The key is to feel free to play. Make it part of your alone time — while driving, walking, studying. Make recordings on your voice-memo app. You’ll begin to feel more freedom adding inflection to your daily speech.

PACE

How fast or slow do you typically speak? We each have a typical talking speed — fast or slow, choppy or smooth. Record yourself having a conversation with a friend or coworker (with permission). Listen back. It’s alright to feel awkward listening and evaluating yourself. It’s part of the understanding process. Start listening to other voices you like. At what pace do they talk? Why do you like them? Begin to notice how other voices make you feel and why.

Start adding silent space to your speaking as well. Most of us don’t take advantage of a good pregnant pause unless we practice it. So practice it.

PROJECTION

Projection, or volume, is a critical element in your sound. Some voices average a medium volume and don’t deviate enough from it. Much of your default voice tone is shaped by the family you grew up in. From the over-the-top energy of Italians and Ethiopians to the stoic, steady tones of Scandinavians and Canadians, your upbringing has affected you.

Part of learning fuller expression means breaking out of the comfort zone you’ve always known. It’s okay to go bigger sometimes, especially on something exciting or urgent. Then try taking it way down to almost a whisper, as if you’re speaking to just one person face-to-face.

If you’re using a microphone, use it to your advantage. Pull it close when speaking softly. Let the mic do the work. Then try getting bigger and more authoritative and back off the mic a bit. We are built to respond to dynamic speaking, and it is fitting that messengers of the gospel work at developing our voices to match the message.

3. Know your listeners.

This brings us to the third and final (yet perhaps most important) principle for effective voice expression.

In Colossians 4:6, Paul says, “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” We have a responsibility to know our listeners and learn how to “season” our speech in a wise and compelling way so they will best hear us.

In the modern advertising world, the voices representing brands are cast and directed to sound authentic. Thus, there’s a common phrase on almost every voice script that comes my way: no announcers. In the new media market, the target audience is supposedly enlightened to the wiles of the old “announcer voice,” the voice that sounds like a staged, inauthentic paid spokesperson for a brand.

So, the modern world is full of messaging by all kinds of authentic-sounding voices, including AI voices. A perfect example would be a warm, friendly middle-aged “mom” voice speaking to other moms about the best snacks for kids. That type of voice selection reaches the target market.

In similar fashion — but for a far higher purpose — you need to bring the appropriate delivery for the moment and the mission at hand. You wouldn’t use your Will Ferrell, kindergarten voice for a board-room presentation or a sermon. From the account in Acts 17, we might assume the apostle Paul was an expert at reading the room, knowing how to connect with his words and his voice. If you’re instructing, you’ll use a more authoritative tone. If you’re counseling one to one, you’ll likely want to use a softer, sympathetic voice (coming from a sympathetic heart).

Go and Speak

As carriers of the good news, we remember that the truth is worth sharing through the best possible means. Write about it. Live it. Advance it. With humility and courage, use the voice God gives you to declare his name. And start a new journey to make your sound versatile and effective for every encounter, whether you’re preaching or having a heart-to-heart talk with your kids. You’ll find that with the Lord’s help, you’ll never stop learning and adding to your ability to speak.

As a final encouragement, practice. Out loud. Have fun doing it. Find physical spaces where you’re free to go big. And move the rest of your body to match your voice too. And when your spouse interrupts your practice time and asks, “What in the world are you doing?” you can simply say, “I’m using my words.”

“Something is stabbing me in the back!” I yelled at my husband. When he didn’t jump to his feet to dislodge the knife, or the needle, or whatever else had impaled my spine, I screamed to him again: “Help me! I’m being stabbed!”

Eyes wide, he turned to the nurses. What was wrong with me? Should he do something? Careful to avoid my line of sight, both women shook their heads. One leaned in, whispering, “She’s just in labor.”

No New Pain

No small amount of aches and pains accompany pregnancy, labor, and delivery. From the usual symptoms, like nausea and fatigue, to the more surprising ones (no expectant mother really expects to start having dental troubles), to the contractions that shock the bravest of husbands, childbearing confronts us with the reality of mankind’s rebellion and God’s just response.

We ask pregnant women, “How are you feeling?” from weeks one to forty and beyond because, Christian or not, everyone knows that having babies is hard. Even today, in the age of germ theory and prenatal care, medications, and C-sections, mother and child alike can still lose their lives in any trimester. Given the choice, I suspect many moms would opt for the ER over L&D. Pregnancy can be that terrifying, and labor and delivery that excruciating.

Christian moms know why: Genesis 3. Sin entered the world, and the word’s sinless Creator responded. To Eve he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children” (verse 16). When our first parents looked for life apart from God, the one to whom they owed life itself, he rightfully declared that bringing forth life would now be painful — and, in the end, futile (verse 19).

And though the curse’s effect on childbearing makes a debut in Genesis, the Bible abounds with allusions to its intensity. The apostle John describes the “sorrow” and “anguish” that a mother feels while giving birth (John 16:21), and Paul himself uses labor to convey his torment over the Galatians’ stunted spiritual growth (Galatians 4:19). As Micah 4:10 puts it, “Writhe and groan, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in labor.”

Without an epidural (and sometimes even with an epidural), “writhe and groan” is right. Sin hurts, and an expectant mother duly cries out — indeed, all creation echoes her pain (Romans 8:22). Nurses say, “She’s just in labor,” because that’s how childbearing works in a fallen world.

Even so, we do well to remember that the curse isn’t the only thing coursing through pregnancy, labor, and delivery. If we look closely not only at Genesis 3 but also Genesis 2, we’ll see that mankind’s rebellion did not speak the loudest, most lasting word in the garden. Grace did.

Grace Begets Billions

Have you ever seen estimates of human history’s birth rates? Flash back to America’s founding in 1776, and you’d find 13 colonies and less than 3 million colonists to fill them. As of today, more than one hundred times that amount call the country home. Then step back and consider the entire planet. Before 1900, Earth contained less than 2 billion; today, over 8 billion people. In 2023 alone, 134 million babies let out their first cries in hospitals and houses around the world. In a word, since God breathed creation into existence, we can only begin to imagine the number of newborns who’ve taken a breath.

“Christ’s death makes new life worth conceiving, new life worth carrying, new life worth delivering.”

On the basis of Genesis 2, however, how many babies ought there to be? When God set Adam among Eden’s luxuriance, he invited him to eat of every tree but one. The day that tree should be tasted — that day, God warned, man would die (Genesis 2:17). Creation’s first people would be creation’s last people, and never would Adam and Eve enjoy the blessing of filling creation with more people. So, on the basis of Genesis 2 alone, how many babies ought there to be? Zero. Not one.

But because God’s person and plan — not our sin and rebellion — is the surest basis of creation’s story, an unimaginable number of babies have been born. The Bible has more than three chapters, the Earth more than two people, because the God who justly punishes is also the God who abundantly pardons (Exodus 34:6–7).

When Adam and Eve sinned, God did not smite them on the spot. Instead, he sought the place to which they’d fled, asked questions, and listened (Genesis 3:8–13). He would cast them from his presence, curse their labors, and declare that death awaited them (verses 17–19). But for now, that day could wait. Adam and Eve still had life to live and babies to make because the God of grace would still have sinners for himself.

Since then, a mind-numbing number of people have followed Adam and Eve — a number to which you may be contributing. But that number should do more than make our brains hurt. It ought to electrify our hearts with praise. Your pregnancy, with all its difficulties, exists because the God who fashioned everything, from the largest nebula to the lightest newborn, is not only powerful and just but also gracious.

Why Babies Are Worth Having

The fact that human life even exists (let alone inside our own bodies!) should astonish us. But is it enough to sustain expectant mothers? When our bodies feel crushed by the curse’s physical effects, when our minds remember that death calls for both us and our babies — what then?

Genesis comes to our aid once more. If at first chapters 2–3 depict God as death-denier, they likewise reveal him as death-destroyer. In the very moment that God cursed creation, he also promised a means for its restoration. From Adam and Eve’s offspring — the children that sin would have thwarted, the babies made possible only by grace — a Savior would come (Genesis 3:15).

The Bible has more than three chapters, the Earth more than two people, not ultimately because God still wanted to create people. No, he wanted to save people. He had shown his glory as Creator, and he would show his glory as Redeemer, as Father. His Son would take on human flesh, trample Satan, sin, and death under his feet, and deliver God’s children back into his arms.

We are privileged women. Eve bore children with sights set on the One who was to come; we labor in full view of the blood-stained cross where he hung. His death makes new life worth conceiving, new life worth carrying, new life worth delivering. For any mother and any child who believe in him, though they die, yet shall they live (John 11:25). The curse may linger on, but it’s as good as crushed wherever Christ is concerned.

Shining, Expectant Stars

Expectant mothers, do we believe this? The more we do, the more we’ll be able to groan beneath the curse’s weight without grumbling about it. Our babies have a chance not only to live but to rise. And as we wrestle to bring them safely into this fallen world, God promises to use our pain to help see us home (Romans 8:28).

The sovereign God of the universe chose your symptoms and set your due date before Earth had seen a single sunrise, and he did so with your good in mind. One contraction at a time, he will see you “conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29). He will be glorified in you, and you will be happy in him. Your sufferings will help to make sure of it.

Which means: First-trimester fatigue, spine-stabbing labor, second-degree tears? Yawn, nap, cry, clench, grimace — but do it “all . . . without grumbling” (Philippians 2:14). Gratitude, not grumbling, befits Christian moms. All three trimesters of pregnancy, every hour of labor, each week after delivery — as full of fear, discomfort, or agony as they may be, if you are in Christ, grace runs through them.

Remember this, groan without grumbling, and then “shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15) — a world that knows having babies is hard but neglects to praise the God who makes babies possible and worth having.