Pregnancy: Antidote for Anxiety

by | Apr 25, 2023 | Family Life, Health, Parenting, Prayer, Spirituality

Anxiety Is Easy

“Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (Matthew 6:25-27, NIV)

Jesus delivers these words during His Sermon on the Mount. He calls his congregation to turn away from anxiety, to put their faith in God, and to seek his kingdom first. He implores us to live in the comfort of the beatitudes and turn away from the temptation to serve two masters, and teaches us to pray using the words of the Our Father.

Jesus’ sermon is one of hope, of assurance, but also of clear instruction. And the instruction is hard. Jesus instructs us to turn away from ourselves and raise our eyes to Heaven.

Growing up Catholic, I’ve heard this sermon many times. For the longest time, I could not hear the words from verses 25-27 without scowling. I’m sure we all go through a time in our lives that, for one reason or another, we are unwilling to believe that God has our backs. We all feel unworthy of His guidance, His love, His mercy. Maybe it’s because life isn’t going well; maybe we lost someone and we’re searching for meaning in why; or maybe we are living in grave sin and unwilling to ask for forgiveness. For one reason or another, I think we all know what it’s like to simply not believe Jesus when He tells us not to worry about life.

I’m a type-A personality. I desire control. When I’m stressed, I need to do something. I need to handle what’s worrying me. In the past, I was anxious all the time, to the point that my chest just felt too tight to breathe. It was a miserable way to live, and a terrible way to handle problems. I used to seek a reason for everything that happened, and it was exhausting.

 

Letting Go Is Hard—And So Is Pregnancy

It wasn’t until my pregnancy with Peter that I truly learned the freedom of acceptance. I was sick from conception to birth and stressed and scared about everything. I worried about everything I ate, everything I did, and cried myself to sleep sometimes in my husband’s arms, praying we would not have a miscarriage. Any mother must be able to relate to the fear and pain of the idea that we could lose our babies before we even meet them. We fear that we may never hold the little life growing inside us and fight the temptation to think that if anything goes wrong during the pregnancy, it was our fault.

Pregnancy is a journey, and a difficult one. It is joy and suffering colliding. It is terrifying and wonderful at once. It’s hard. There’s not much more to say.

Over those nine long months, I slowly prayed through the pain and fear. God revealed His comfort to me little by little, until I could finally be at peace with the difficulty. There was a freedom that came with being able to say, “This is hard. It’s allowed to be hard. I’m okay with it being hard.”

We are not called to lives of ease, but to pick up our crosses daily. Jobs are hard. Families are hard. Marriage is hard. Children are hard. Life is hard. We can’t seek the easy way out all the time. Even if we want to, it won’t always be an option. When I was pregnant with Peter, there was a long time that I worried I would not want to be pregnant again; that I would be one and done because I wasn’t strong enough to get through the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual difficulties.

 

True Freedom In Acceptance

And guess what? All my anxieties did not add a single day to my life or help me in the slightest. My pregnancy was hard from start to finish and I was constantly worried that my baby boy would not be healthy. It made no difference. My labor with Peter lasted less than nine hours (pretty good for a first time!) and he was extremely healthy and completely beautiful. I remember the pain, but I’m not traumatized by it. I would go through any number of pregnancies and labors to bring any number of blessings into this world. The pain is certainly not a distant memory, but I am at peace with it. I am at peace with accepting that some things in life are just hard.

Do not worry about your life. Accept the hand you’re dealt. God will take care of the rest.

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Michelle C. Martin

Michelle graduated from Texas Tech University with her husband, Joshua, in May 2021 and married him in June on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She has a degree in Communication Studies and has loved growing in knowledge of healthy and authentic relationships during her time in college and adulthood. Michelle and Joshua currently reside in Lubbock, TX where he works as an architect and she loves life as a stay-at-home wife and mother to their children, Peter and Cecilia.

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