Labor with Hope: Gospel Meditations on Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood (Furman)

Description

The world is filled with messages for women about pregnancy. Popular books and well-meaning family and friends offer unsolicited advice about what to expect and how to stay healthy—sometimes resulting in joy and excitement but other times leading to discouragement and fear.

The Bible, too, has a lot to say about childbirth—offering real hope that nothing in this world can match. In Labor with Hope, Gloria Furman helps women see topics such as pregnancy, infertility, miscarriage, birth pain, and new life in the framework of the larger biblical narrative, infusing cosmic meaning into their personal experience by exploring how they point to eternal realities. Women will see that only Christ can provide the strength they desperately need in order to labor with hope.

Read Chapter One

Contents

1. In the Image of God He Created Them

2. Be Fruitful and Multiply

3. The Promised Seed of Woman

4. Why Does Childbirth Hurt So Bad?

5. Pain in Parenting

6. Writhing under God’s Judgment

7. God’s Birth Pain

8. The Gospel Is the Ultimate Cure to the Abortion Epidemic

9. Tasting Death for Others

10. The Birth Pains of Death

11. Jesus’s Death Begets Spiritual Offspring

12. Birth Pain after Childbirth to Raise Spiritual Disciples

13. Putting Pain in Its Place

14. All Creation in the Throes of Labor

15. Conceived in Sin and Saved by Grace

16. You Must Be Born Again

17. Boasting Only in the Cross

18. A Tomb Became a Womb for the New Creation

19. Our Deliverer Delivered through Birth Pains

20. Saved through Childbearing

21. Children Are a Blessing

22. Knit Together

23. Don’t Trust Birth; Trust God

24. God Who Causes to Give Forth

25. From Inevitable Sorrow to Guaranteed Joy

Endorsements

“Gloria Furman has a disarming way of connecting the most concrete stuff of our lives to the most glorious truth of the gospel. She’s doing it again here, as she peers into the realities of pregnancy and childbirth through the windows of Scripture. This book opens the windows wide. We do well to ponder this theme, of which God keeps reminding us in all kinds of painful and marvelous ways.”
-Kathleen Nielson, author; speaker; Senior Adviser, The Gospel Coalition
  

“Gloria Furman has written devotionals that will transform the way we view pregnancy from conception to birth and beyond. Labor with Hope magnifies the glory of Christ and all that he has done, and helps us fix our eyes on the one who gives eternal life.”
-Trillia Newbell, author, Sacred Endurance; If God Is for Us; and God’s Very Good Idea

“When Gloria Furman speaks about motherhood, I always listen. In Labor with Hope, Furman shows us how ‘every aspect of childbirth fuels our worship of Jesus,’ beautifully unpacking that statement as she takes us on a journey through Scripture, demonstrating how the birth pain metaphor illustrates God’s work in us. Each chapter in this meaningful devotional explores a different aspect of this mystery, leading the reader to a fuller understanding of our hope in Christ and the God who labors over us.”
-Vaneetha Rendall Risner, author, The Scars That Have Shaped Me: How God Meets Us in Suffering

“Every part of life belongs to God, even the parts when we’re trying to combat the never-ending heartburn, struggling to find that elusive comfortable position, or panting and pushing to birth the long-awaited new addition to God’s world. My dear friend (and mother of four) Gloria Furman has crafted beautiful meditations for you to ponder as you labor through your pregnancy and wonder, ‘Why is this like it is?’ Dear sister, this book will help you understand what’s happening and why, and will give you hope for future days of joy in God’s good providence. I heartily recommend it!”
-Elyse Fitzpatrick, author, Give Them Grace

About the Author

Gloria Furman (MACE, Dallas Theological Seminary) lives in the Middle East where her husband, Dave, serves as the pastor of Redeemer Church of Dubai. She is the author of many books, including Missional Motherhood; Treasuring Christ When Your Hands Are Full; and Glimpses of Grace.