Travail

Travail is unique in every respect. For one, as any woman who has experienced it can testify, travail is dreaded due to its pain and uncertainty, but also anticipated with hope due to its purpose, to give birth. Fear takes hold on a woman in travail (Ps. 48:6). "She has sorrow because her hour is come," Jesus declared, "but as soon as she is delivered she remembers no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world" ( John 16:21). Travail is the main biblical term for childbirth....