On Anxiety

I went to the doctor yesterday for my regular check-up and everything looked good (he IS head-down, which was a concern for a few weeks there), except that the baby's heartbeat was a little lower than it has previously been, and on the low end of average, so the doctor ordered a nonstress test (NST), where they monitor the baby's heartrate and movement for 20 minutes to make sure that the heartra
te goes up when he moves and stays steady when he's not moving. Anyway, I had to sit there for 20 minutes listening to his little heart beat away and click on this button everytime he moved. He passed the test just fine, so the doctor said everything should be okay, but I have to keep a regular check on his kick count (how much he moves in an hour) and go straight to the hospital if it seems irregularly low to me... Of course, the odds are, given his good reaction to the NST, and the fact that he is generally very active, that all is just fine and he just happens to have a slightly lower-than-average heartrate (but still in a normal range), which could indicate that he's on the larger side. But my immediate reaction is to start thinking of all the worst possible scenarios and fear for his life and health and generally become paranoid... Which got me to thinking about a sermon I listened to Monday night that C.J. Mahaney preached during that Washington D.C. sniper stuff a couple years ago... the topic was fear (his church is in the D.C. area) and he was preaching from Psalm 27: "The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?...", as well as Matthew 10:26-33 where Jesus says we are not to fear those who kill the body, but rather the one who can destroy both body and soul in hell, and then goes on to talk about the Father caring for the sparrows and knowing the number of hairs on our head. His point about fearing because of not trusting God's complete sovereignty and providence in our lives was convicting enough before the doctor's appointment! I don't have time to outline all the really good and helpful points he makes in this sermon, but it's a good one, so if you have time, it's well worth a listen...

Also well worth a read on the subject of anxiety, this time specifically in relation to motherhood is this little article by Kristin Chesemore, which I first read sometime last week... Seems to me that God had my reading and listening to these resources well-timed with this last doctor's appointment!:-) So today I've been praying that I would not be finding my comfort in the fact that the medical tests seem to show that all is well, or that the last 24 hours of kick counts have shown him to be as active as ever, but rather in the fact that through Christ, I need no longer live in terror of him who can destroy not only the body but also the soul, and that God is completely sovereign over the life and health of this little boy in my womb, and is working all things for His glory and our good! "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock." (Isaiah 26: 3,4)