God Hears: Postpartum Anxiety

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while now, or know me personally, you may know that I struggled with some pretty intense postpartum anxiety after having Benaiah. You can read more on that here. That anxiety clouded the first four months of Benaiah’s life and honestly, that sweet newborn stage was not fun for me. I didn’t enjoy it the way I anticipated I would and felt discouraged, fearful, and emotionally/physically exhausted. I remember telling Landon, especially once I felt much more myself months later, that the thought of getting pregnant again and possibly experiencing postpartum anxiety again scared me more than any other aspect of pregnancy, birth, and motherhood. But, as the months and years went by, I felt more and more separated from that experience and more assured that, as Landon encouraged me years before, the Lord would sustain whenever that happened.

Fast forward to when I found out I was pregnant with Eliana. I was so excited and yet, that old familiar fear of the ‘what ifs’ crept back into my heart. What if I went though PPA again, I didn’t want to do that, what would happen if I did? I talked those things through with Landon and my good friends and my mom and sisters and really felt encouraged that just because I had PPA with Benaiah didn’t mean I would with Eliana. Still, I took measures to avoid setting myself up for failure. Landon and I made sure we were watching encouraging and fun things for date night (not anything suspenseful) I tried to get a good amount of sleep, and really dove into the Word.

But, it wasn’t until I was about a month out from my due date that I began to again feel a weight of discouragment. What if, what if, what if – rang in my heart. And yet, again, the Lord proved faithful. Around one month away from giving birth to Ellie, the Lord reminded me gently, and powerfully, as he does that I didn’t have to submit myself to living in fear – but I could fight through prayer.

And so I prayed, and prayed, and prayed that the Lord would sustain me and free me from any anxiety. That the enemy wouldn’t steal my joy and that Eliana’s birth and those month of sweet newborn snuggles would be redeemed. Through that month of so of intense prayers, Jesus began to show me a truth that I’ve known for years and yet, so often need to relearn. That He truly does care for us. He really does love us. And He really knows us. How wonderful it is to be fully known and fully loved by the One who knows all things. Isn’t that a crazy thought? And it was through this knowing that He loves me, I had the confidence to go boldly into prayer.

And friends, He heard.

Immediately after having Eliana, I felt so different. I felt immediately bonded with her and the first few weeks up until right now as I am typing have felt SO different. The cloud of anxiety that I felt with Benaiah is totally gone and I am loving this phase with her, so so much.

I wanted to share this, simply because it is a testament of God’s faithfulness. He is faithful and He does hear (just as Eliana’s name means) and prayer is powerful. I couldn’t “free” myself from my fears, but through Jesus’ love and strength, He did. I hope that this encourages you, if you are facing similar fears or life situations.

I hope you know that He cares for you. I hope you know that He loves you and hasn’t called you to a spirit of fear. I hope you know that in Jesus there is freedom and that He has called us to that. And I hope you know that because of God’s radical, redemptive love, we can boldly approach the author of our lives with the requests we have for Him.

He is worthy and He is faithful and He hears. And He is good, all the time.