My brain caught up to me around 3am and suddenly I found myself awake and sobbing in bed. I got up hoping I wouldn’t disturb my husband, probably the wrong choice. I fell to my knees on the living room floor and I prayed. The tears would not stop. I prayed for strength, I prayed for peace, and I prayed for clarity on our next steps. I asked God why, but not in the usual why is this happening to me. I wanted to understand what He was asking of us, how I could help to make good of the struggle He had placed in my path, I feared I was not strong enough to do what He was asking me. I opened my Bible to a verse that I had been repeating to myself all week.
In late January during my Bible study we were all asked to share a verse, I cannot remember the exact context or what the verse was supposed to mean to us but one of the ladies shared a verse from Exodus. As the Israelites stood with the sea to their backs and the Egyptians fast approaching, they started to panic, and Moses told them, “The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still” (Exodus 14:14). The verse struck me in that moment and came to me again many times over the next month. God was speaking to me in those moments, preparing me for what was to come, but I did not know it yet.
I read the passage out loud and I started to repeat the words “you are not welcome here, you are not welcome in my home, you are not welcome in my family.” I was talking to the devil. That probably sounds extreme to a lot of people, but just the week prior in my mom’s group we talked about how the devil is strategic, he will come for the thing that is most likely to break you down. We were all asked to answer the question “If you were Satan, how would you take you out?” My answer: “I think mine would be my kids. I’ve gotten better in the last year or so at accepting that they are a gift that God has given me to take care of for however long He has planned but they are ultimately His. It has helped with my anxiety a lot, but I often wonder if my faith could actually withstand something happening to one of them.” That’s an exact text I sent just 13 days before our anatomy scan. To be clear, I am not saying that this diagnosis came from the devil, but the fear I felt that night, the fear that was starting to overtake my thoughts and make me wonder if I was strong enough to handle this; that was certainly from him. So, I told him out loud that he was not welcome in my home, and I said it repeatedly until I stopped crying, until peace came over me, and I could take a deep breath.
My sister had sent me a song earlier that day that I had not listened to yet and for some reason I felt compelled to listen to it in that moment. I won’t say it was the wrong choice, but it was certainly a choice. The tears came back, music has the capacity to move me in a way that not much else can, but the tears felt different this time. Sadness, grieving, but not fear. “We’re in for nasty weather, and I’ll ride it out with you.” I held my belly, I rocked, and I listened to these words. I listened to it twice, I said a prayer, and I went back to bed. I knew we had a rough road ahead of us, but we could do it. We could face the storm, because I knew that in my stillness the Lord was fighting for me.
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