(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)
Welcome to the birth prep podcast. I'm Taylor, your birth bestie, who's here to support you as you plan and prepare for the unmedicated birth of your dreams. If you're ready to ditch the fear, conquer the hospital hustle, support that bump and bod, and walk into the delivery room like the HGIC you were born to be, then buckle up, babe.
This is where it all goes down. Hello, hello, and welcome back to the birth prep podcast. I am hoping to remove a lot of background noise, aka Penelope, um, on the monitor, but it's 11 PM on a Sunday night.
And if I don't do this now, it's not going to get done. And I want to get it done because this is so important. I really want to talk to you about it.
Okay. So please excuse my singing wide awake little toddler who took a five hour nap after church today. She's just not tired.
Okay. She's in bed. She's fine.
She'll fall asleep, but she's going to play first. But I really wanted to talk to you about this this week because I'm 20 weeks pregnant today, which is amazing and fantastic and so awesome. And we love that little cute milestone.
We're halfway done, half baked, whatever. And it's so great. And also this is like, when stuff starts to get really real, not that it's not real before this point, but you know what I mean? Like, okay.
When you get to that halfway point, you're like, wow, that was so fast thinking from when like, you got that positive pregnancy test to now. And it's like, Whoa, that flew by. And that's like, that's how much time I have left.
That's wild. Especially with the holidays coming up, I feel like time just like clicks fast forward and we just zoom through these last couple months of the year. And then January is going to be here before you know it.
And it's like, that's crazy. And while your girl has done a lot of prep over the years and very knowledgeable about all the things I am not exempt from doing this work, especially the topic we're going to talk about today and something that's been really heavy on my heart and something I've been studying on and all that. So we're going to chat about it.
Okay. Birth is spiritual warfare. And I'm not sharing this to scare you.
Obviously I don't really share anything to scare you. That's not my vibe. I want you guys to have the information you need in order to move accordingly.
So I'm saying this to equip you because I was in my Bible this week, reading Ephesians and Ephesians 6, 12 says for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world and against spiritual wickedness in high places. And maybe girl, your birth is not exempt from this reality. And I always heard this stuff growing up because I grew up in church.
I've watched my parents deal with spiritual warfare and I heard all about it. And I've heard this verse a million times. Like I know this one by heart, but I never actually like understood it.
Like I believed it. Sure. But I never actually understood the fact that there's quite literally a war going on in the spiritual realm all the time.
I didn't really understand it until a few years ago when I came back to the Lord and the Lord really opened my eyes to the things that are not seen. Then I was able to understand the importance of armoring up, which is what Ephesians 6, 10 through like, I don't know, 20 ish is all about. And it's been really interesting.
The more that I learn about the word studying the word over the last few years, pairing that with what I already knew about birth and what I had been studying for the years prior to that. It's like, this makes so much sense. The fact that fear quite literally creates the pain that we feel during our birth experience tells me a lot, right? If you have not looked into the fear, tension, pain cycle, please do.
So it's something that I absolutely make sure my students are equipped with. And it's something that I think every single pregnant woman should know about having that information, that little tiny bit of information changes the way that you prep so much, because it really turns things from, Oh, we're taught that birth is so physical, so physical, your body, your body, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, yes, your body's going to be doing a lot of work that day.
But the majority of the work that you are actually going to have to do is mental work, spiritual work. And I hope that you've been in your word and reading all of the things and that you already know this. But if you don't, the Lord has a lot to say about fear.
Do not fear. Do not be afraid. Fear not.
I was reading to the kids the other day about Jesus sleeping on the boat and everybody freaking out because there was a storm and they woke up Jesus. And Jesus was like, are y'all for real? And then just told the waves and the wind to just shut up and leave them alone. And then everything was calm and everything was great.
And it's like, our faith has to be bigger than our fear. But anyways, my point is birth isn't just physical. It's deeply spiritual.
And when we start to see it through that lens, the fear loses its power. Honestly, from the moment that you find out that you're pregnant, even before, so from the moment of conception, when life begins, something sacred begins and the enemy hates that. Why? Because every birth represents life.
It represents legacy kingdom advancement. Like the Lord is quite literally in there hand knitting this new person. And the enemy wants to get his foot in the door immediately.
John 10, 10 says a thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it more abundantly. The enemy will use literally anything, fear, distraction, doubt anything he can to steal your peace and your focus.
But God's will is for you to have abundance, to have peace, to have life, even in your labor experience. Ladies, the Lord did not curse us to have terrible, awful birth experiences. And I could go on about that.
But that's not today's topic. We're going to stay on task. But you see, the enemy doesn't wait until your contractions start to start sabotaging your labor experience.
He starts whispering early, he plants little seeds so that maybe by the time you get to the delivery room that they're full grown trees that you can't freaking move. What if you're not strong enough? What if something goes wrong? What if it's just like last time? What if it's worse? What if you can't do it? What if your goals are way too outrageous? You can't even handle this nausea. How are you going to handle the pain of labor and delivery? And he knows that the odds of you walking in unarmed to that birth later are just going to get higher and higher.
The more he can shake your faith now, but there's hope because the Lord is so good. James four seven says, submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. So we don't prepare from a place of fear.
We prepare from faith and authority because baby the battles already won. And spoiler alert, you get to be on the victorious side if you so choose. So what does spiritual warfare actually look like in birth? Spiritual warfare doesn't always look dramatic.
I think I had it in my head as a kid like I envisioned like this, you know, sword fighter, this big action scene of these two, like nearly equals fighting it out till the death. And it's like so dramatic and this big to do. But like, that's not what spiritual warfare is.
Can it be heavy? Can it be a lot? Can it be dramatic? Absolutely, of course. But usually it's disguised as just ordinary things that we deal with on a regular basis. Anxiety, confusion, exhaustion, the urge to just go with the flow, even when you're feeling unsettled about things.
Some scripture for you. First Peter five, eight, be alert and sober mind. Your enemy, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
But he's subtle. He distracts you so you forget the power that's already within you through the Holy Spirit. Thank you, Jesus.
In Romans, we know the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you. Isn't that crazy? That the same spirit that conquered death quite literally lives inside of you. And when you walk into that hospital or that birthplace or wherever you're gonna be, you are not walking in alone.
That's truly amazing. Like, thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to have that kind of power within us. Like what a gift that is.
He didn't have to do that. Are you kidding me? And not only did he give us that power, he also gave us step by step instructions and his word on how to armor up for this kind of stuff. It's in Ephesians six.
And this does not just apply to birth. It applies to every area of your life, including birth. Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to And I'm going to cover this more in depth on Friday.
So please join me inside the Facebook group for birth prep power hour. We're going to be talking all about the full armor of God, but I'll just bring it down real quick for you. And of course, please open up your Bibles and read this for yourself.
Again, this is applicable to everything you do in life, not just birth. But anyways, first step, we have the belt of truth. You really need to know what's actually true about your body and God's design for your birth experience.
Psalms 139, 14 says, I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Like you were quite literally designed for this process. And the more that you learn about birth, the more your mind will be blown.
You're like, holy cow, this, this Lord of mine, the most amazing creator that has ever been and ever will be. He was so intentional with how he created our bodies, how he created our babies to work with our bodies, how he created the whole process from start to finish. It is amazing.
Your body was created for birth. That's truth. So equip yourself with the truth.
That's first and foremost. Secondly, the breastplate of righteousness. You need to guard your heart.
The breastplate protects everything that's under it, right? You need to guard your heart from shame, from comparison, from guilt, and just remind yourself like who you are, who you are in the Lord. There's no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ. You don't have to carry that shame, that comparison, that guilt.
You don't have to carry it. You get to lay it all down. You get to protect yourself from it.
And then we put on the shoes of peace and peace. Isn't the absence of chaos. Like I don't want you guys to be confused here because you can have a very chaotic, very crazy birth experience and still be at peace about it because peace is the presence of Jesus, not the absence of chaos.
When you're doing things with the literal Prince of peace, it changes the game. Okay. Next we have when fear comes and it will, because that's the enemy's favorite tactic.
You need to hold up your shield. First John five, four says, this is the victory that has overcome the world. Our faith.
If your faith isn't there, and we already touched on this. Your faith has to be greater than the fear. If your faith isn't there, you don't have a shield.
It's not there. The fear can get straight to you. So you have to have that faith in the Lord.
And I don't know about you. If you aren't like this, pray for your weaker sister, but I have to work on this. I have to be like intentional about having faith about things because fear does come up.
Like I just said, it will, it absolutely will come up and I have to remind myself and I have to stay in the word and I have to keep on my prayers. And I have to make sure that I'm praising the Lord, even when things don't look how I want them to look or how I thought they should look. Cause your girl still gets scared about things a lot.
And I have to continually and intentionally bring that to the feet of Jesus. So pick up your shield. Next we have the helmet of salvation.
And I just want you to hear me on this because I talk about this all the time about protecting your thoughts, about mindset stuff, about all that. And it's like, the word tells us the same stuff. And it's like, before I ever gotten the word about this stuff, I was all about the birth affirmations and your mindset and, and, you know, being intentional about the thoughts that you're thinking, because your thoughts are going to create your actions and your actions are going to create your results and all of that.
Like I was so into that stuff before I even knew that it was quite literally the blueprint the Lord gives us. I just knew it worked. I didn't know it was scripture, but there's so many things, right? In Philippians, it tells us to think on whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is praiseworthy.
We're told to take our thoughts captive. And I teach you guys how to do that. Like that was one of my favorite mindset tools, like before the word, I was like, figure out all the crappy thoughts that you think about birth, write them down, figure out where they came from.
Um, you know, all that stuff. It's taking them captive seeing, okay, where did this come from? Why am I thinking this? Is that actually true? Do I actually want to continue believing this guard, your thoughts? It is so important in everything that you do in life, but it's so important in birth too. And I say it, I said it earlier, I'll say it again.
Mindset is huge in your birth space. Then finally, the sort of the spirit and the word tells us in Ephesians six, I don't even know what it is. 18.
Nope. Sorry. 17.
It tells us that the sort of spirit is the word of God. The word of God, AKA your Bible is the living word of the living God. He literally gave it to us as a tool to use.
And you need to speak God's word over your birth experience. Huber's 412 says that the word of God is alive and active, and it's sharper than any two edged sword and the armor is great. And we love it.
And it's so protective of us and all the things, but the sword, the sword is your weapon. And if you are walking into a battle, which you are spiritual warfare, it's a war zone. If you are walking into that with just protection, sure.
That's great. That is so much better than nothing. But if you do not have that sword, how far are you really going to get? I don't know about you, but I don't just want to get out of there unscathed.
I want to become a threat to the enemy. And I got to tell you, cause it's the cutest thing, but my four-year-old Archer, he is so precious, but he has been saying recently when he falls or something, he'll be like, oh, it's okay. I didn't get any damage.
Or if he sees something that looks like it hurts or something, he's like, oh, that was like 2010 damage. I don't know. That's his favorite number, 2010.
Um, or sometimes they'll say a hundred, but, um, it's, you know, it's so cute that he like talks in like video game, like, oh, he sustained damage basically. And I'm, I don't know about you. I don't know about you, but I don't want to go in just hoping to avoid damage.
I want to go in and do some damage. Like I want to walk into enemy territory and take back everything that I lost. And then some, and the Lord gave us authority to do that.
So armor up it's time to do some damage. So here's how to spiritually prepare for birth. And this is where spiritual meets practical because faith doesn't replace preparation.
Okay. I have talked about this before and I will die on this Hill. It fuels your preparation.
I've seen it so many times that women just put their faith in God and that's amazing. And that's so important to do, but then they sit on their hands, the whole rest of their pregnancy and act like it's all just going to fall into their lap. And I don't know if you just haven't been reading your Bible or what, but that's not how the Lord works.
Can he do it? Absolutely. But he tells us to be a good steward of what he's given us. And that includes tools and resources that includes our time and our energy.
So here's what you can start doing today to spiritually prepare for birth. Number one, you're going to start praying over your pregnancy. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation by prayer and petition with Thanksgiving, present your requests to the Lord.
That's Philippians. Let me look it up. Philippians 4, 6, pray over your provider, pray over your birth team, your mind, your body, literally pray over the experience, pray over your postpartum, pray over your baby, pray for wisdom as you navigate preparation and planning for this thing.
Number two, worship. You want to fill your environment with his presence and worship is a beautiful invitation for the Lord to enter in. The word tells us that as they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes against their enemies.
Worship shifts atmospheres. And I've seen it time and time again. And I'm not just talking about the times that I'm on stage worshiping with the team.
I'm talking about even those moments when your house is chaotic and your kids are literally driving you up the walls and you go and you say, Alexa, play my Jesus loves me playlist and worship music starts to fill the atmosphere and things just start to shift. Number three, speak scripture and biblical affirmations daily over you, your baby, your birth, all of the things speak truth. Death and life are in the power of the tongue.
What you speak, you strengthen. There were so many days in my first trimester where I felt like garbage and I didn't want to do a single thing and I just wanted to crawl back into bed and do absolutely nothing. But you know what? The Lord is my strength.
And I had to remind myself of that a lot and other biblical truths too, because you know, otherwise would the laundry have even gotten done? Probably not. The enemy is already sowing fear and doubt and lies. Why wouldn't you get ahead of this and start now speaking truth over your experience.
I have biblical based affirmation cards. If you want them, you can put them on your phone. You can scroll through them.
You can make that a part of your morning routine or before you go to bed, a part of your daily Bible time reading through those they live inside birth prep with Jesus, which is a free resource. I will link it in the show notes for you. Um, but number four is rest.
And this is one that I've honestly kind of sucked at, but the Lord is good and faithful. And he's still working on me a couple months back. Um, he asked me to start taking a Sabbath.
So I've been doing that for a couple months and honestly, it's still very difficult for me to take that intentional rest. But those days where I'm not worried about picking up all the messes and switching the laundry and getting that Instagram post ready for Monday and getting the emails written for next week and getting all the stuff done for school and baseball and dance class and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like, I hear him so much more in just the mundane, in just the sitting when I'm crocheting or sitting and playing a board game with my kids.
Like when everything's been hushed, I get to actually listen for his voice. That's still small voice. It can be hard to hear when there's a million things fighting for your attention.
And I'm not telling you to start taking a Sabbath. That's not what I'm here to do. The Lord told me to do that and you can pray on it if you want to, but this is my personal journey with the Lord and what he has called me to do in this season.
And in my chaotic, busy, insane life, I have to intentionally create time for peace. Peace and preparation is still preparation. Okay.
The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still. That's what the word says.
And again, that doesn't mean sit on your hands and do nothing. That means relax, chill, rest, believe that the Lord's got it. Do what he's asking you to do.
A lot of y'all are all up in God's business and you need to just stay in your lane. I'm speaking to myself too. Okay.
Because I do the same thing sometimes. It's like, oh, I could definitely handle that all on my own. I know how to figure that out.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then lo and behold, she's crying to the Lord again, Lord, help me with this. So be intentional with your rest time.
I'll just recap those really quick. One, pray over your pregnancy to worship and fill your environment with his presence. Three, speak scripture and biblical affirmations daily and for rest.
And I know I already mentioned it, but please grab birth prep with Jesus. If you haven't already, it's full of prayers and scriptures and affirmations and devotions and all kinds of stuff to help you anchor your birth in faith, not fear. And I just want to leave you with a little encouragement.
Psalms 46, five says that God is within her. She will not fall. And that's not just like some cute little poetic thing.
That's a promise. You are not walking into birth powerless. You are walking in covered, equipped and accompanied by the one who created both you and your baby.
So ask yourself this week, where am I preparing from? Am I preparing from a place of fear from a place of control, from a place of wanting to get it right? Or am I preparing from a place of faith from a place of believing that God created this body and he's going to carry me through and I'm going to lean on him and I'm going to prepare my little butt off and do all the things that he's asking me to do because I want to be prepared for this experience. Because when your preparation comes from peace, your birth becomes an act of worship. So we're going to pray together real quick.
Lord, thank you for the privilege of carrying life. Like honestly, uh, the most beautiful thing. Thank you so much for the opportunity.
I ask that you strengthen our bodies, renew our minds, guard our hearts, teach us to walk in peace and in confidence. Help us to remember that you've already won every single battle I can ever face. Even in my birth experience.
Thank you for who you are calling me to become in this season of life. Thank you for equipping me with all the things that I'm going to need to walk in your will for this pregnancy and this birth experience and beyond in Jesus's name. Amen.
That is all for today's episode. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for sticking with me in the beginning with she's asleep now.
Praise the Lord. Please don't forget to grab the freebie that's linked in the show notes, birth prep with Jesus. It is literally everything that's in there.
The Lord told me to put in there. So it's jam packed of some resources for you to do this work, to start inviting God into every single part of your prep. Join me Friday inside the birth prep lounge for a deeper dive on armoring up for your pregnancy and your birth experience.
And if you're ready to take things deeper to prep your mind, your body, your team, your spirit for your unmedicated hospital birth, come and join us inside the birth prep course. Keep praying, keep preparing, and remember take some rest, intentional rest, not the kind where you beat yourself up the whole time feeling guilty, but where you get to clock out and actually rest. Okay.
Until next time, as always, happy prepping.
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)
