1104 results for author: Ashlee Schmidt

Strength For Those Who Are Weary

Confession time—the Bible I use is still my Student Bible from high school. I’m three years shy of forty, and I still haven’t graduated to the adult Bible. But don’t worry. It’s in great shape because of my nifty Bible cover that displays the "Footprints in the Sand" poem. You 90’s girls know what I’m talking about. Maybe you had that Bible cover too, or perhaps you had the poster up in your Sunday school room at church. This poem talks about a man who looks back on his life in a dream and sees two sets of footprints during his life’s journey. They belong to God and himself. However, the man notices that during the hardest ...

Danielle’s Story of Hope

My growth in trusting God’s faithfulness started before I got pregnant. When I was 45, I worked hard to worship God with my body by being careful to keep it as healthy as possible in case I would be blessed with another pregnancy. I had heard many negative things about older mothers, and did not have many people in my life who were supportive of me wanting to have another child at my age. If I were able to have another child, I knew it would be for God’s glory, and l would be dedicated to the task of raising him or her to know and love God. I became pregnant in 2023 with my eighth baby, thirty years since my first pregnancy. I had an amazingly ...

Recognize the Opportunity

Paul reminds us in his letter to the church in Thessalonica that we do "not grieve as others do who have no hope" (1 Thess. 4:13). But what exactly does that mean? In this series, we explore what it looks like to honor God in our grief and examine the ways we can choose to grieve with hope. When my son went to heaven several years ago, I was overwhelmed with grief and sorrow. One week his heart was beating, his body growing in my womb, and the next week, his heart had stopped. I was admitted to labor and delivery, and said hello and goodbye to my only son in a matter of five, short hours. Several days later, we ...

Finding Rest in the Lord

Rest. If there was one thing that seemed to elude me in the days, months, and years following the loss of my first two daughters, it was rest. Every part of my being was weary and overwhelmed by the simplest tasks. Little vacations here and there that were supposed to invite some sort of respite did nothing to reprieve me of the pain of loss searing through my bones. I struggled to find some experience, some place, some outlet that would calm my often anxious, lonely, and sad heart. I prayed in the year after the loss of my second daughter that it would be a year of rest. It was nothing of the sort. That is, it was nothing like how I would have ...

Better Than Laughter?

"Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad." Ecclesiastes 7:3 READ: The world tells us that laughter is the best medicine. But this worldly point of view is incomplete according to what God teaches us through His Word. While a joyful heart is indeed good medicine (Proverbs 17:22), Ecclesiastes 7:3 also teaches us that, “Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.” Many believe it was King Solomon who penned this book after earnestly praying for godly wisdom. Many of Solomon’s teachings, found in Ecclesiastes, turn worldly thinking on its head. How is ...

Rest in the Lord

Paul reminds us in his letter to the church in Thessalonica that we do "not grieve as others do who have no hope" (1 Thess. 4:13). But what exactly does that mean? In this series, we explore what it looks like to honor God in our grief and examine the ways we can choose to grieve with hope. The word “rest” for grieving moms can be such a hard one to hear. If you are deep in trenches of sorrow, rest can seem unattainable. You lay down to rest, but you can’t shut down your brain, and you find yourself spinning the reels of every moment with your precious little one. The nights last forever, and you might wonder ...

Kelly’s Story of Hope

I remember standing at the funeral of a friend’s baby, stillborn at full term, ten years ago, completely inconsolable, sobbing, and unable to pull myself together. Much to my husband’s dismay, I just wouldn’t let him console me. All I could say to him was, ‘I just don’t want to ever have to do this!’ Yet I knew it was very likely I would have to do that exact same thing at some point in my life. You see, I have always known I have a balanced chromosome translocation. My parents had a stillborn baby, with no warning signs, at 36 weeks. And after that had tests done to see if there was any reasoning behind it. They discovered then that my ...

Reorient Your Heart

Paul reminds us in his letter to the church in Thessalonica that we do "not grieve as others do who have no hope" (1 Thess. 4:13). But what exactly does that mean? In this series, we explore what it looks like to honor God in our grief and examine the ways we can choose to grieve with hope. Broken but beautiful. If someone had asked me how I was doing almost a year ago, right after Paige went home to Jesus, I can honestly say that my answer would have simply been that it all felt broken. But God has patiently and faithfully shown me how to reorient my heart and look at this journey as yes, broken, but also beauti...

Because He Lives

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,Because He lives, all fear is gone;Because I know He holds the future,And life is worth the living,Just because He lives! Because He Lives, Bill and Gloria Gaither Never did the resurrection bring such comfort to my weary heart as when I first found out that my baby’s heart had stopped beating. I was suddenly faced with the reality of death and all that it had stripped me of—all of the firsts and all the memories that would never be experienced, the innocence and care-free naivety of pregnancy, and the sense of “completeness” for our family. Something—someone—would always be missing. Fear and ...

In the Word: The God Who Sees

Welcome to Hope Mommies’ In the Word devotionals. Over the next several weeks, we will be looking at different names of God found in Scripture, and how these different aspects of who He is offer us hope in the midst of our grief.  As we study together, we encourage you to use the comments as a place to dialogue with us about what you are learning and share your answers to the questions below. We pray that you hearts will be encouraged as you study these names of God along with us! “She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: ‘You are the God who sees me,’ for she said, ‘I have now seen the One who sees me.’” Genesis ...