It’s not that I don’t look forward to a better life than this mortal world — it’s the process that sounds awful — the transition from a mortal sphere to a millennial sphere. It reminds me of how I feel about pregnancy, once I learned that it was no easy breezy 40 weeks for me. Each time I made that decision to have another baby, it was with a vast knowledge of what was coming. You see, the females in my lineage get severe barfing to the point of needing an I.V. But the result — a baby — was always worth it. But the process was a nightmare. Seven times. Two of which ended without that baby reward.
Anyway, I feel that way about the last days’ scenarios. Either you progress through death (another not so great thought) or you progress through all the chaos on the earth as it transitions to the next more habitable and joyful life. I once heard Thom Harrison explain that the earth is going to progress from this telestial life to the Terrestrial (millennial) and that you want to stay with the earth. I think he said something like, “you want to stay with the earth because it is moving on.” Instead of thinking that you will be raptured to some other world of glory, this world becomes a world of glory, and the people who stay are those that want to live a more glorified life of the next order. If you like to cheat, steal, destroy, rely on the arm of flesh, etc. then you don’t stay with the earth as it transcends. All that is worldly awful is destroyed. People too. Now, of course, some people die and progress, but some stay and progress. But chaos is definitely part of the process. Out of chaos comes a birth.
So I have these same feelings — kind of enjoying the status quo of earthly life, but also feeling the stress and sadness of this life. I remember that it’s hard to be pregnant, it’s uncomfortable, and you have to give up waking up and feeling good. It takes 40 weeks — 40 is the symbol of suffering in all of the scriptures. Forty days, 40 years, 40 months, whatever, it symbolizes a period of suffering, not always an actual accounting of days or years.
Forty appears many times in the Bible, usually designating a time of radical transition or transformation…The Talmud also reports wondrous phenomena occurring in units of 40. It also appears in mystical texts, usually as an element of purification.(ref)
The number 40 has great significance throughout the Torah and the Talmud. The number 40 represents transition or change; the concept of renewal; a new beginning. The number 40 has the power to lift a spiritual state. Consider:
When a person becomes ritually impure, he must immerse in a ritual bath, a mikveh. The Talmud tells us that a mikveh must be filled with 40 se’ahs (a measure of water). Immersion in a mikveh is the consummate Jewish symbol of spiritual renewal. (ref)
Then, after a long 40 weeks of pregnancy, labor and delivery are very symbolic of last days’ chaos. You often have Braxton Hicks contractions for months before you go into labor. You can also have false labor that seems to be progressing but stops. Then you get real labor that does progress, but you still have to get to that transition stage at about 8 cm, when you feel like you may die or wish you would. And all that pushing and finally a birth — a baby — and it is all worth it. You see, I have experienced natural childbirth three times, c-section one time, and epidural one time. I do think natural childbirth was the best for me. Now I understand the symbolism of the last days.
I often marvel that the scriptures are full of the symbolism of pregnancy, labor, and birth. It seems like a woman wrote it because only women understand what it feels like to be pregnant, labor, and have a baby. Why would a man write about it? Well, who knows. But I plan to study it out and look at all of those scriptures that reference childbearing — the woman in travail.
But for now, these are my thoughts about the current chaos on earth — not sure where it’s going, because history is full of these things, but I have mixed feelings.
