Growing up, we shared this legend in hushed, reverent voices:

Once, there was a teacher who was pregnant. One day, she got so mad at two of her misbehaving 8th grade boys, that she walked right up to them, grabbed them by the scruffs of the neck, lifted their meaty bodies off the ground, and knocked their obnoxious heads together so hard that they went cryin’ home to their daddies. (If you teach 8th graders, you may be shrugging your shoulders and wondering, “Yes, and…?”) As I said, the boys went cryin’ home to their daddies, who, because this happened a long time ago, agreed with the teacher right away, and knocked them upside the other side of the head – the side the teacher missed. And, or so the story goes, the boys had the sense knocked into them for the rest of their lives.

This legend left us speechless… In awe… In fear… Beware the power of the pregnant lady!

I never really believed this legend; even in my first three pregnancies, I’d wonder, how could a person really get that mad?

That is, I never understood the legend until now.

During this pregnancy, my blood boils, and my heart races, so that out of no where, I am seething!

I pace the floor, muttering “I am so mad!” as I daydream about how great it would be to actually ROAR LIKE A LION. (True story. Wouldn’t it be so relieving?!)

I’m usually reluctant to attribute emotional responses to hormones, because it questions the validity of our feelings. Not any more. I’m giving hormones all of the credit, because I can feel them rise up in revolt! I can feel them charge against all of my emotional responses at once. Last night, I wanted to cry, laugh, scream, and sneeze all at the same time. Which, when working in combination with each other, just feels very, very mad.

I’m just sayin’… watch out for me.

When it first started, Vivienne didn’t know what to think. I’d snap at her and she’d look up at me with her wide, wide eyes, wondering Where’s my mother?? It broke my heart. So I flip-flopped from anger, to tears.

I’ve been praying for wisdom and self-control. I’ve been confessing my sin. I’ve been meditating on the book of Ephesians, and taking deep breaths and trying to walk in the Spirit, but when those hormones start seething through my body, it’s very, very difficult to refrain from setting the whole world straight, and gettin’ some hair under my own fingernails.

Sometimes, my only hope is to cling to the Cross. I simply have to rest in this prayer, “…Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.” Psalm 73: 24 – 25

Oh, the sweetness of a Savior who understands pregnant ladies… Who understands me.