Spring is here, and now it's time to start prepping for baby planning for a baby. Finally, this is the moment I've been waiting for my whole life: to start a family. My wife and I head to the doctor's office to get checked out and see our chances of having a baby. The doctor comes in with the results and then suddenly leaves the room. She and another nurse quickly come in smiling and say there's no need for prepping cause you're already pregnant! I was immediately shocked and felt like part of me left my body. It was as if people were talking around me, but I was in a different place. I had longed for these words for years and wondered when that time would be. I immediately hugged my wife with excitement that we were pregnant. We were shocked at this brand-new news as we left the doctor's office. I thought this wasn't how we planned to be pregnant so soon. We had a plan; we wanted to save more money, and we didn't imagine going into the doctor's office thinking we weren't pregnant to coming out of the office and now knowing that we were pregnant.
Immediately after, I go into full-go mode of preparing myself for the baby. I then went to Google and started searching pregnancy at five weeks. Google gives me all sorts of information. As I process this information, I realize all this is new, and I have no idea what to expect. During the first 12 weeks of my wife's pregnancy, I had so much anxiety about what could happen. My mind automatically went to the worst-case scenario. What if we have a miscarriage? What if we do something wrong that hurts the baby? As these thoughts race in my head, I search Google even more. I would count the days it would be safe to tell our friends and family and constantly be in this state of overthinking and worry. I remember thinking I didn't feel prepared for this and searching Google was the only way to prepare. I would worry day and night, constantly trying to prepare myself and honestly logically predict what would happen so I could feel safe. Knowing everything and every possible scenario would hurt less or somehow prepare me for the future. As the pregnancy continued, I started to wonder why I had so much anxiety and why I struggled to be present and to think positively during the beginning of this pregnancy.
Growing up, I had this image of God that He's a God who watches me, sees my trouble, and doesn't always intervene. I saw and developed this thought pattern of God as someone who doesn't always come through in times of stress. It came from those prayers that I would pray for my mom's healing each night, battling with the demons in my mind that I sometimes felt like God had cursed me with, watching my father die suddenly and feeling abandoned by my father at times, growing up struggling with money and from a single parent home and honestly not seeing God come through the way I wanted him to show up in my life. I blamed God for things I felt He could've protected me from. I saw God as far away and struggled to see his almighty power and sovereignty in my life. In some ways, I felt like it was me who had control over my life, and somehow, I temporarily lost faith in Him. All these emotions and thoughts felt like a punching bag to my soul. Whenever a milestone in our pregnancy occurred, I would find it hard to celebrate because I couldn't stop thinking about the worst-case scenario. Anticipating the worst-case scenario was not a healthy way of living in the moment.
Thoughts taken captive.
I began to pray as I knew my brokenness was rising to the surface, and as each day progressed, I felt like I was slowly suffocating in my thoughts. I asked for prayer from people at church and began to reveal my fear. I feared God would let me down and not bless me with something good. I knew my foundation in Jesus was shaky. There's a song called Firm Foundation My Maverick City, and each night that my thoughts start to come or when we have a scare, I play this worship song. I found comfort and peace in this worship song because I could imagine myself alone in a house in my head. All my thoughts and fears were coming at me like a bad storm. This storm comes and tests my house; somehow, rain comes to break this house, and even the wind blows this house, but God won't let that happen because I have a firm foundation and put my trust in Him. I can use this analogy of the house in my life, and I can rest in his presence and know that I will be fine regardless of what happens. God is my solid when things seem shaky.
Shout out to the guys at Morehouse who are students in our ministry there. We were studying the bible, and we read Mathew 7:24-27, and I mentioned I would put this in my blog.
24 "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it."
These verses stood out to me because they applied to my life. I was foolish to think I could build my foundation full of Google searches and rely on past circumstances to predict my outcome. Those strategies were like I was building my foundation on sand, which could have been better. Instead, I needed to build my foundation on something solid, which is the word of God, so when life comes at me like a storm, I will stand strong enough until it passes.
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