Separation is hard. It can often be unbearable. Jesus is trying to prepare His disciples for the coming separation they will experience from Him. He tells them of the sorrow they will feel when He dies and then how all that sorrow will be erased when they see Him again when He resurrects from the grave.

“When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” John 16:21-22 ESV

For those of us who are women, we know how painful it is to go through childbirth. But all is forgotten when we hold the precious newborn. It was painful for the disciples to go though seeing Jesus beaten and crucified. But all that was only a memory after encountering the glory of the risen Lord!!!

This gives me hope in another area of my life as well. There is great sadness in losing someone you love in death. BUT all that will be erased when we are once again united in Heaven! Never to be separated again.

The joy of a mother holding a new born baby, the joy of seeing The Risen Savior, the joy of being reunited with the ones we have been separated from by death… that is what Jesus wants us to experience. That is why He has overcome the world!

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”” John 16:33 ESV