John 16:21

Our Lord compares the state of the church in this life, and more especially in those first and most furious times, to the state of a woman that is big with child, and in her travail; when, he saith, she hath sorrow, that is, great pain, because God, when he cursed the woman for her transgression, made this her portion, Genesis 3:16, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and when her weeks are fulfilled, her hour is come to feel the effect of this curse, the fruit of the first woman's transgression: but no sooner is she delivered of a child, but she forgetteth all her throes and pains, for joy of a child born into the world. Such (saith our Saviour to his disciples) is your state; you are as a woman in travail; so will all those that believe in me be, to the end of the world.