1104 results for author: Ashlee Schmidt
Sustained Through Loss
"It doesn't get any easier, does it?" You meet kindred spirits in some of the strangest places sometimes. As I nervously stood in line at my local drugstore I dreaded what I was about to do. I knew I needed the medicine in order to have some form of closure and to complete the miscarriage, but something felt so wrong about it all. Deep within my soul I wanted to scream to all who were around me: "I'm not having an abortion. I promise. I was pregnant. I wanted this baby!" Thankfully I didn't have to. But that didn't make the situation any less uncomfortable for me. As the pharmacist asked me the obligatory "are you pregnant?" (which is apparently ...
Ask the Blog Team: I Find Myself Almost Obsessively Reading Other Peoples’ Stories of Loss. Is This Healthy
Welcome to our Q+A series, Ask the Blog Team. In this series, the Hope Mommies blog team joins together to answer questions that are commonly asked in grief. If there is a question or topic that you have wrestled with in your grief that you would like the opportunity to see how other Hope Moms have processed or answered, we would love to hear from you. You can submit your questions here.
I find myself almost obsessively reading other peoples' stories of loss. Is this healthy?
I loved connecting with others online about loss. I've even made some long-distance friends this way due to my unique situation. I will say, I wish I would have taken ...
Awakened to Motherhood
Each child gone ahead from among us is a precious person made in the image of God—and all having been made into Hope Moms, we together declare motherhood in each of our journeys. We are eager to go above and beyond in showing honor and love for one another (Rom. 12:10, 15). Through this series, we honor each other’s experiences of motherhood in love through our shared God of hope.
I began to taste the beauty of motherhood not when I conceived my first child but when I first began to give my life away in ministry to other women at the age of 13. Does that seem strange? It’s hard to imagine that 13 is the age when many in ancient times became ...
Discussions in Grief: Numbness
Grieving involves new emotions and considerations often too many to numbers. When you find yourself in overwhelming grief, you likely feel buried and lost. In this series, we slowly and compassionately look at one aspect of grief at a time from a biblical perspective for the newly grieving mother. Click {here} to read past posts in this series.
I slowly climbed into the wheelchair ready to be escorted out. The nurse pushed me out of room 307 and down the hall of the labor and delivery unit. Nurses stopped and squeezed my neck and said their goodbyes. Strangers, there I assume to meet their newest family member, gave looks of sympathy. They ...
In the Word: Faith For this Outcome
Welcome to Hope Mommies’ In the Word devotionals. If you are joining us for the first time today, make sure you don't miss the first posts in this series here. Over several weeks, we are looking at 1 Peter 1:1-9 verse by verse. As we study this passage together, we’d love 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 dig into God's Word each week along with us!
"obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls."
1 Peter 1:9
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Continuing on with the theme in our 1 Peter 1:8 ...
To Know Him More
I know suffering. Most of the seasons in my adult life have been a season of suffering. From the emotional and sexual abuse I experienced to my early miscarriage, I have walked through much suffering. However, none of these forced me to truly dig deeper in my relationship with God than the death of my daughter, Chloe. She was stillborn in May of 2016, and it shook me in a way that nothing else has.
I did something after my daughter’s death that I really hadn’t done after my other sufferings: I pursued God. Really pursued Him. I wanted to feel His comfort, know I wasn’t being punished, be assured of my daughter’s presence in heaven, and ...
Grief and Sod: Part 2
... continued from Thursday's post
“Don’t rush the grass,” my counselor said, as I retold to her the story. Oh how quick we are in our western culture to want the dirt gone and the grass grown as quickly as possible. And so it is with grief; we don’t want to do the hard work of entering into the grief process, of letting it be uncomfortable and messy for an unpredictable amount of time (Grief never lets you know when it will start to loosen its grip). We just want the end result, the beauty, the redemption, the truths tied up with pretty bows, “here’s what I’ve learned” and on we go. Well, at least that’s what I would like sooner ...
Grief and Sod: Part 1
It was what would’ve been Dasah’s two-month birthday but instead of taking cute photos of her I was standing at her gravesite for the first time since we buried her. It was a beautiful day and somehow as I was driving that day I found myself turning at the road that goes into the cemetery instead of just driving by as I usually do. Whenever anyone says they’ve just “found themselves” somewhere I’ve always thought they must be a little crazy. Who just “finds themselves” somewhere? Well, that day I became that crazy person. I think of turning every time I’ve driven by and just can never seem to muster up the energy to face whatever ...
