The Mind Games of Pregnancy (& the Importance of a Strong, Sound Mind)
After three months of not feeling like myself—and not having a single ounce of inspiration to write…we’re back (me + a bun in the oven!!!).
As I write this, I’m 16 weeks pregnant with our first baby—a sweet baby boy—and BOY does it feel GOOD to be in the second trimester.
The nausea graciously packed its bags and departed last week. My mind and body seem to have accepted the fact that we’re pregnant now. And the exciting yet exhausting conversations of “We’re pregnant!” are dwindling down…
With that, I’ve finally felt inspired to write again. (Thank you, JESUS.)
And what better topic to write about than what the Lord has been teaching me during this season?
It feels like we’ve learned 1,001 things since that first millisecond of seeing a second pink line appear on the pregnancy test…
But the biggest takeaway?
Realizing that growing a baby is a lot more mentally straining than physically straining—at least for now.
Week 8
Let’s start at the very beginning…
We found out we were pregnant on Friday, January 10th. At that time, baby boy was the size of a poppy seed.
For the next two days, Jordan and I were in a state of absolute bliss. You could practically see the joy of the Lord oozing out of us. We were rejoicing and giving thanks day and night.
But then the high wore off…
And by the time the baby was the size of a sesame seed, the worries started creeping in.
It felt like an avalanche of fears crashing into my mind—wrecking the peaceful harmony that once existed.
Most of the fears were silly, while most had never even crossed my mind before. Fears like…
Did the baby implant in my uterus correctly?
Is the baby really in there? And is he growing the way he ought to be?
Will I ever sleep in again once he’s born?
Should we have a TV in the house? I don’t want him to be addicted!
Am I strong enough to get through labor?
Do we actually want to do a homebirth?
Wait…I just signed up to give birth to a baby without pain meds?
The fears went on and on and on…
And to be honest, a new fear pops into my brain every week.
But by the time this week rolled around, I’d had enough.
So I started praying for a strong, sound mind.
And in typical God fashion, He gave me just what I needed in that moment…
I opened up the Bible app on my phone, and ironically enough, I had one day left of a Joyce Meyer devotional I must have started YEARS ago…
The devo—called Battlefield of the Mind—was all about how to have the mind of Christ…
“The mind of Christ is given to us to direct us in the right way. If we have His mind, we will think positive thoughts. We will think about how blessed we are—how good God has been to us.”
Meyers goes on to say, “The mind of Christ in us is positive. So when we fall for the opportunity to be negative about something, we should instantly discern that we are not operating with the mind of Christ. God wants us to be lifted up. It's the enemy of our soul who wants us pressed down—depressed. We have many opportunities to think negative thoughts, but that's not the mind of Christ at work in us. We don't have to accept those thoughts. They are not ours!”
Oh how the enemy was pressing me down! He drowned me in so much fear that I lost sight of the truth: God designed my body to be a home.
I was DESIGNED to create, grow, and nurture new life. But I was caught up in the lies of: “What if I miscarry?” “What if I’m not strong enough for labor?” “What if, what if, what if…"?”
The devotional above was inspired by the verse, 1 Corinthians 2:16—
“We have the mind of Christ.”
And as Paul reminds us in Romans 12:2, in order for us to have the mind of Christ, we must not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our mind.
For me, this “renewing of mind” isn’t just a one-time phenomenon. It’s a daily, hourly, and often minute-by-minute choice that I have to make. A conscious, deliberate choice. Because in our fickle humanness, our default setting is very rarely positive—it’s negative.
As Joyce Meyer said in the devotional: Negativity is what keeps us operating OUTSIDE of the way God intended. And if we’re operating outside of His design, we’ll feel helpless, insecure, depressed, hopeless, anxious, and downright negative.
Once I had this newfound awareness, I cried out in my prayer journal…
“Free me from the mind I used to have and resurrect in me the mind of Christ. Let this mind of Christ blossom positive thoughts within me—let it register how blessed I am. Whenever I grumble or complain, let me be aware that I am operating outside of the mind of Christ.”
Now, I’m beginning to train my mind to see the good in this pregnancy: I am literally co-creating life with the Creator of the universe! How rad is that?
One last verse to meditate on…
In addition to the devotional mentioned above, this Bible verse has kept me afloat during this season of life:
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
—2 Corinthians 12:9-10
