Hey friends, I'm Rachel Grohl and I'm your host for the Hearing Jesus podcast where I help you to know God and to make him known.

Have you ever had moments in life where it feels like you're holding two things at once?

Joy and sorrow. I kind of am in a space like that right now. My middle daughter is graduating from

high school and today was her last day of school and I pulled out her first day of kindergarten

picture. And so I'm looking at both of these pictures, her now grown and ready to graduate and

take on the world and contrasting that with her first day of school.

And while I am incredibly proud and excited and can't wait to see what God does in and through

her, there's this other element of grief almost and sorrow about this season that's coming to an

end. I miss my little kindergartner that was in that first picture.

I miss that sweet little person that she used to be, even though I really enjoy this full grown

woman that she is now. And I think those are some sacred moments that we have that we can experience

where we're holding almost like two different opposing emotions at the

same time. That paradox is really beautifully captured in the story of Rachel's passing and the

birth of her son, Benjamin. We're going to be talking about that today in Genesis 35 picking up

at verse 16. And in this passage, we see a mom who is losing her own life in the process

of giving birth. And it's this reminder that often we can have some of the moments of our greatest

joy walking hand in hand in our deepest sorrow. And I know my example isn't quite as severe as the story that we're about

to read, but I think there's this reflection moment for us because life is full of those

bittersweet moments. And so I think the encouragement is how do we reflect on joy and sorrow

coexisting in our lives? How can we hold on to God's presence, even though

we're going through some hard transitions? That's what we're talking about today. So as I read,

and I'm going to be reading from the NIV, you can read from your favorite version. It's just a

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