Links for Hope Moms {Summer 2019}

We want to share with you links to posts, videos, and resources from around the web to uplift, help, and encourage you in your walk with the Lord as you grieve.

1. {How to Deal with Grief} // “But grief is not something to be distracted from, overlooked, ignored, or avoided. There’s no timetable and no way to rush through it. Grief is not something that we just have to trudge through or endure until a certain amount of time has passed. The journey we take through the wilderness of grief is necessary. There are important things that take place there. There are things we learn, experience, and walk through in that wilderness that will change and transform us into the likeness of our Savior.”
2. {The Joy That Lies Behind: One Place to Look When Tragedy Strikes}// “Sufferers often lament the struggle to experience and believe in the companionship of God. While people may encounter moments of surprising joy, the ever-present intensity of sorrow and grief can overwhelm the heart and create a sense of spiritual isolation. Finding joy in Christ in the midst of suffering happens when we rediscover the presence of God in suffering. In a sense, joy is a gift from God to reassure us of the truth of his promises and the reality of his presence. Finding this joy, however, can be easy in theory and hard in practice.“
3. {What I’ve Learned through the Pain of Miscarriage}// “All three of us lay on the bathroom floor weeping, cut deeper than any knife could go. I’m a husband and father. I can’t even begin to imagine the multiplied pain for my wife—who bore our child’s life and our child’s death in her own body. In that bathroom, mother and father were mourning what we knew was lost, our nearly 2-year-old son was clinging to us and crying with us because he didn’t know what was wrong—but he knew something was. Our loss was, and remains, a family pain.“
4. {Flashback post: Why Did God Allow My Baby to Die} // “So, in His allowing my daughters to die, I have to conclude that it was not void of His love however mysterious and confusing that can be at times. Nor was it void of His power for He is before all things and in Him all things hold together (Colossians 1:17). I know that God is doing a work in and through our lives that we could not comprehend, and that He even calls our suffering light and momentary compared to the glory that we will someday see (2 Corinthians 4:17-18). Though I know it certainly doesn’t feel light and momentary. But in God allowing my daughters to die, it is not without a more glorious purpose that I know I will one day understand in full and be utterly amazed by.“

Ashlee is the Editorial Coordinator for Hope Mommies. She and her husband, Jesse, have four children on earth and two little ones in Heaven. You can get to know her more by reading her blog, Beyond Undone.

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