A Woman In Labor

My seventh child was born on Thursday. I now have two sons, sixteen years apart, with five girls in between. Michael and his mother came home yesterday

As sometimes happens when I try to follow along with what the Church is reading in the Lectionary, I read the wrong gospel. I didn't realize that it was the Feast day of St. Matthias, and so I read the gospel for Friday of the Sixth Week of Easter (John 16:20-23). It turned out to be rather appropriate.

When a woman is in labor, she is in anguish because her hour has arrived; but when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the pain because of her joy that a child has been born into the world. (John 16:21)

I asked my recently delivered wife if she could elaborate upon the verse for me. She just smiled and said, "Yeah, that's the way it is."