1104 results for author: Ashlee Schmidt

Giving Thanks With An Aching Heart

Simeon was due in the middle of November, the day after his big sister’s birthday. It seemed so special to me that the two of them would be born so close together. I imagined with excitement how much fun it would be, albeit a bit overwhelming, to have back to back birthday celebrations right at the start of the holiday season. There would be so much to plan. So much to celebrate. But Simeon wasn’t born in November as we had expected him to be. Instead, he was ushered into the arms of Jesus at just 14 weeks gestation. Rather than preparing for our daughter’s birthday while cradling our sweet babe in my womb, or making final arrangeme...

Discussions in Grief: Hiding

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.  "You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance."-Psalm 32:7 We walked toward the car, heads hung low, hand in hand. We had just learned that our baby, at 20 weeks gestation, was no longer breathing and after two hours speaking with a ...

Jessie’s Story

I remember talking to a friend after my first loss, wondering aloud if I would always tell people when they asked how many children I had, that I had one in heaven. She told me, “I am sure when you have one on your hip, and one grabbing your leg, that you won’t feel like you need to tell people.” It was intended to comfort, but she was wrong. My hope babies, are all a part of our family in both my mind and my heart. They left much too quickly, and the scars I had on my heart remain. Scars from two losses in a row and a third a few years later, from the callous things people said to me, and from trying to pretend to be okay for too long until ...

Kim’s Retreat Experience

Four months after my second consecutive missed miscarriage, I had the privilege of attending a Hope Mommies retreat. I didn’t really know what to expect going into it, but I could tell from the carefully worded and tender-hearted emails that were sent prior to the retreat that it was going to be a positive experience. The amount of thoughtful care and attention to detail that the retreat organizers put into their planning was evident all weekend long, from the numerous gifts we received throughout the weekend to the verse cards placed throughout the venue, to the decorations completely covering up the baby changing station in the bathroom so we ...

Discussions in Grief: Suffering

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 don’t know the circumstances surrounding your sorrow. Whether your loss occurred many years ago or very recently, the ache you carry in your heart is agonizing. There is nothing that can prepare you for the devastation of losing a child, and there are no words that can take away the pain that ...

In the Word: We Shall Be Like Him

Welcome to Hope Mommies’ In the Word devotionals. It is our desire that this series will aid you in getting in the Bible for yourself and discovering the joy that comes from hearing from God through the pages of His Word. “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”(1 John 3:2) READ: When others have told me that my child is an angel in heaven, perhaps they are using a nickname—like how I might say endearingly that my daughter was “perfect to me,” without that comment being a ...

Purpose in the Pain: Drawn to the Lord

It’s been ten years since I held my baby boy in my arms on that hot July day. Some days it feels like a lifetime ago, and others it seems like just yesterday. When I think about that season of my life, there are certain details that stand out to me. I remember how hot it was every single day. Our area experienced a pretty severe drought in the summer of 2011, and the heat was more than anything this Texas girl had ever before experienced. I cried when we finally had a good afternoon rain shower!  I remember the fierce love that I felt from a community that we had just moved to a few months before, and the intense grief that came with ...

Shannon’s Story

When we found out we were pregnant with our third child, we were over the moon. Being ever the planner, I immediately began to envision how this new one would fit into our lives. At our 20 week ultrasound we found out we were having a girl. We brought home pink flowers and balloons to surprise our two oldest. The next day I bought her first outfit—a sweet little summer romper. There were a few small things that came up on the ultrasound that we needed to follow up on, but we were assured that they were nothing major. We went back at 24 weeks and everything seemed to be fine with our little one. Later, I remember so clearly the phone call that ...

Ask the Blog Team: How Do You Handle the Fear of Something Happening Now to Your Husband or Living Children?

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. In the year following our loss, I did wrestle with these fears. A lot. I don't think they were there before that time, but they pushed me to realize how ultimately I lacked faith in the Lord's sovereignty over my life. He dealt with the root cause of all ...

It Doesn’t End in the Struggle

Losing a baby causes many secondary losses—loss of hope, loss of innocence, even loss of strength. Many of us have also lost close relationships as a direct result of our child’s death and how we, and other people, chose to handle it. Loss ripples outward in large and small waves all over our lives. For me, losing our children to miscarriage meant that I lost a good portion of the peace I had—peace that I realized later was built upon the sand of life’s circumstances. In retrospect, I can see that it was inevitable that I would lose that peace. It was more of a question of when and where that would happen. Since we lost our ...