Ryser gently placed his wet nose on my pregnant belly and nudged me a little bit to let me know he was ready to get up for the day and go outside to use the bathroom. I pet his head a couple times and then turned to get up out of bed. But I couldn’t move.
It’s like my hips were glued to the bed preventing me from being able to lift my legs. I could slide them side to side, but something was preventing me from being able to lift them up. I wiggled and pushed my body around the best I could until I was too exhausted to keep trying and finally came to the conclusion that I was just stuck.
I imagine my 8-month pregnant self looked very similar to a turtle being stuck on its back. Comical to see, yet it didn’t feel comical in the moment.
I weighed out my options and tried to figure out how I was going to get up. All my family and friends lived over an hour away and my pride wouldn’t allow me to text David to see if he could come over and help me out of bed. I felt too ridiculous and felt like he might think I’m being a wimp.
I laid there for about an hour in tears with a growling belly and a whimpering dog begging to go outside.
Finally, I decided that I had to find a way to do this. No one was coming to save me. I had to muster up all my strength and just find a way to get up. Using both of my hands and gripping onto the bed, I slid my body down towards the end of the bed until my feet dropped on the floor and I could stand up.
This was the result of some of my unfortunate symptoms from my pregnancy, but this was a low spot. It stabbed my pride down deep for my body to get to a point where I felt like I couldn’t even take care of myself anymore.
This was my breaking point. I felt like the Enemy had stolen so much from me and now he broke my body so much that I could hardly move.
Being so worn out and completely drained physically, emotionally, and mentally, I sat in my empty home and yelled, “Just leave me alone, Satan! You can’t take anything else away from me. I have nothing left to give!”
No one understands the depth of pain when the Enemy steals from us quite like Job. Job was a rich man who the Bible referred to as “blameless and upright” (Job 1:1). Assuming that the reason Job was such a good man because of all that God had blessed him with, Satan challenged God that if all those things were taken away, Job would curse God. God replied to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.” (Job1:9-12)
In one day, Satan came and took everything from Job. He lost five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred donkeys, seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, a large number of servants, seven sons, and three daughters. (Job 1:13-19) In one day! Not only did he lose everything, but frustrated that he still did not curse God, the Enemy came back and covered Job’s body with painful boils. (Job 2:7)
Yet the reason Job has an entire book in the Bible dedicated to him is because of his faith during this season he was going through. Even after everything he went through and all that he lost, Job remained faithful and even fell to the ground in worship saying,
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will depart.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
may the name of the Lord be praised.”
-Job 1:21
I won’t lie. My first words to God after David drove away were not praise words. I didn’t curse God or charge Him with wrongdoing, but I did question why it had happened and the purpose of it. But so did Job.
We get to read Job’s words and conversations with friends and the Lord about his turmoil. You can feel the heartache in his words, especially if you’ve gone through a heartache yourself.
“What I feared has come upon me;
what I dreaded has happened to me.
I have no peace, no quietness;
I have no rest, but only turmoil.”
-Job 3:25-26
I’m so thankful for the story of Job and clung to it during the first few months especially. I felt like if Job could stay faithful to God during all that he lost, then I could find a way to stay faithful during my trials as well.
Some days I felt like a modern-day Job! Shortly after my husband left me, things started falling apart around me and I felt like I was being sent trial after trial from the Enemy. It wasn’t enough to be pregnant and grieving over my failing marriage, but day by day I was being stripped of all that I prized in my life.
At the time, I was a DIY (do it yourself) and home decor blogger so I took pride in having a cute, clean, and functional home. But during these few dark months from my husband leaving to me having our son, a lot happened in our home and it felt like it was falling apart around me as every appliance in my house decided to take its turn to break down and creatures from outside decided it was also a good place to live.
My stove ran out of propane and when that happens the stove omits a strong, gassy odor to alert you that it is running low. However, since I had covid, I lost my sense of smell for a few weeks. So this odor took over everything in my home without me noticing. As I was getting my sense of smell back, I started to notice the stench and how bad it was. Unfortunately, it had been roaming in my home for so long that it took over a month for me to air out the house and get the smell out. I went through so many candles and air fresheners! People would come to visit me and leave with watery eyes and a sore throat. That’s how bad this stink was! Most of the time if I had visitors over, we would leave and visit somewhere else because the odor was so strong. I couldn’t cook my visitors anything anyway because my stove and oven were out of commission for awhile as I waited to get more propane.
Shortly after that, I noticed my basement, where we keep our washing machine and dryer, was quickly getting covered with dust and lint. David was usually the one that vacuumed and cleaned the basement and I was shocked at how quickly it got dirty with him gone. Turns out, my dryer vent somehow got detached. So every time I dried a load of laundry, the dryer would shoot some of the lint out around the room. We’re going to blame this one on pregnancy brain because looking back I feel foolish for not being able to pick up on what was going on with this one earlier than I did. My basement was covered in lint before I noticed the vent had detached.
Next came the freezer! Since I was pregnant, I made freezer meals in preparation for after the baby came. I filled up my freezer and no more than a few days later, my freezer decided to stop working. It built up ice in the back causing it to block the cold air going into the freezer. By the time I noticed, all my food had spoiled.
Somewhere in between all that, I noticed bugs had started invading my home. I found spiders the size of my palm in my coat closet. Bugs were finding their way into my bedroom at night through the air conditioner so I spent about ten minutes each night before bed with a fly swatter and tissues to collect all the bugs wanting to share a room with me. I frequently found ticks, spiders, or earwigs in my bed. Imagine waking up in the middle of the night only to find you’ve been sharing your pillow with an earwig. I’ll admit, it’s not something I’d like to do again.
Then the mice. We had a few issues with mice throughout the years, but they mostly minded their own business and stayed in the basement. But now they started making their home in my kitchen and coming out at night. One evening I finished washing the dishes around 8:00PM and left them in the sink to dry. When I walked back into the kitchen around 10:00PM, I saw mouse poop all over my counters, my stove, and my freshly cleaned dishes. It wasn’t a small amount. It looked like an army of mice had had a party on my countertops. And I keep a clean house! I promise! I know my house sounds like a house of horrors at this point and you’re probably hoping I never invite you over for coffee and a snack. But I promise you that these things were rare occurrences in my home.
I think that’s what I was so discouraged with. These things never happened when David was home with me. Or if they did, they didn’t happen all at once and we took care of them together. These are normal home maintenance responsibilities and would normally not phase me one bit to take care of. But being responsible for taking care of everything and being pregnant when it felt like everything around me was breaking or attacking me, I got overwhelmed.
I was telling a friend all that was going on in my home in the short amount of time that I was there alone and she looked at me and said, “It’s like you’re being plagued.” And that’s definitely how I felt. It was like each day had a new challenge to overcome and work through and sometimes it felt like more than I could handle on top of all the other stress I was dealing with. I tried really hard to stay positive and not let these little annoyances get to me, but at the end of the day, I felt like I had lost my home. And I did in a way. My home wasn’t a home without David and at the time I wasn’t sure what would happen after I gave birth to our son. Since my family lived over an hour away, I couldn’t keep living there alone once I had an infant to also take care of.
The next thing that I took a little pride in that I felt like was being taken from me was my body. That sounds vain, but I’ve worked hard over the years to try and stay fit and eat healthy. I think as women we are all really self-conscious about our looks and that only gets harder when you’re pregnant as your body goes through so many changes.
During my pregnancy I used to joke with my midwives and say, “I bet I win the award of most stretch marks!” My once youthful looking skin was now covered in stretch marks. They covered my entire belly, wrapped around to my back, covered the inside of my legs down to my shins, and even showed up on the insides of my arms. Honestly, I’m not so vain that I can’t handle some stretch marks. I expected some and I don’t think they would’ve bothered me so much had my husband not just left me. If there was ever a time I wanted to feel good in my skin, it was now. But I was covered in ugly scars.
Pregnancy was really hard on my body and I can almost bet the main cause of that was because of stress. In the second and third trimesters of my pregnancy, I dealt with a lot of hip pain. It was so severe that I could hardly walk some days. I had groceries delivered to my home because it was a challenge to even walk from my car to the store, let alone walk around collecting my groceries. Thank goodness for modern times and apps like Instacart!
Needless to say, I had a lot happening in my life and I was so tired.
Maybe my situation wasn’t quite as severe as Job’s, but I still felt so connected with him and felt like I could relate to him. I felt his pain. It seemed like Satan kept going back to God and saying, “She’ll stop being faithful if I take this away.” in the same way that he did to Job. I felt as if everything was taken away from me; my husband, my home, and my health. Those were similar to how Job was targeted by the Enemy too; his family, his belongings, and his health.
It can definitely feel so overwhelming and like we have nothing left when we’re in the midst of our pain and heartbreak. God was blessing me each day and creating a miracle in my womb. But when the pain is so strong and consuming, it’s so challenging to focus on the blessings. But the blessings were there. I saw God work in powerful ways during this season in my life. God was providing me strength every day to get through this.
We see in the end of the book of Job that at the end of his hardship, God restored Job. And because of Job’s faithfulness to the Lord throughout the most excruciating and heartbreaking time in his life, the Lord blessed him and gave him twice as much as he had lost.
The Enemy is a thief and he comes to steal, but thankfully we have a God who restores.
He wants that restoration for you too. God loves His children and loves to restore their lives, give them hope, and bless them. But we need to remain faithful. I know you might be in a season where you’re getting impatient and it feels like this struggle will never end. But day by day, God will walk you through the layers of pain and heal each one.
