Who has ever listened to a lie and sat in it, until it brought heaps of anxiety and fear? Unfortunately, me, too many times. Whether its reading something and believing it would happen to me, or something about my kids, you name it, I have believed it. Before I walked through lyme disease and God renewing my mind years ago, it was really bad, I believed so many lies because I was so used to being tormented that I thought it was normal. God took me through a beautiful journey of renewing my mind while healing me physically of battling with lyme disease, but it was not easy because it was an unsurrendered area for so long. Probably since childhood, so decades of listening to the filthy lies of the enemy, and thinking it was normal and just struggling with fear and anxiety like a lot of other people. But then God showed me it was not normal and I was a slave to listening to the wrong voice, which led to hopelessness, depression, fear, anxiety and a lot of other things.
I write this to say, even though I have been pretty free in the area for a while, there are still times, where I am weak, that the enemy still throws things at me and I give in to it. Most recently, in the final weeks of pregnancy, where my hormones are all over the place, the enemy has taken something from the past and thrown it back my way. Specifically, high blood pressure, or preclampsia. It came with a vengeance when Joshua was born a few years ago where I had to be pumped with magnesium for 24 hours after birth and go on a lot of medication. I felt like I was traumatized from the hospital, especially when nurses would come in to check my levels, my heart would race once I heard the machine rolling in, and it would make my levels higher, and then they would put me on even more medication. It was an ugly spiral that was traumatizing.
Now, weeks away from giving birth again, my plan is to have a midwife come to the house and do a home birth. I have always wanted to do one but never did. Now, I found someone that does them locally and really wanted the beauty of being at home and having my kids be able to see the baby shortly after being born. I have been doing epsom salt baths every night because the magnesium helps with the blood pressure, but this past week my levels have been higher. I know that I have been more stressed as well thinking about the past and having flashbacks.
The enemy is ruthless, his job is to kill, steal and destroy and God comes to give life and give it abundantly. We need to know what weapons we have in the toolbox, so we are prepared to not just cower and listen, but fight back, in His strength and truth, so that the enemy has no room to even come. In the moments where I take my levels, I want to feed the correct and truthful voice of peace that stills me, not the one that causes stress and my heart to race. It is a lot easier said than done, and I ask that if you are a believer, you would stand with me, that He is strong in my weakness, and that throughout the day I wouldn’t even take a second to believe a voice that is a liar. I pray that you too, in whatever lie that you are believing, to overcome with Jesus, because nothing beats the peace that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6)