1104 results for author: Ashlee Schmidt
Choose Hope: Testimony
It had been three years since my first loss. Three years since National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day first felt significant to me. This year, October 15 caught me by surprise. With all of the changes brought about by a recent move and an ever shifting season of life, it had completely escaped my radar. When I realized what day it was, I ran out to grab balloons and helium so that we could do a small balloon release as a family after our kids got home from school. Most of our belongings were in storage as our family was attending a four month training residency at the time, so the items that we would typically get out as we remembered our ...
Purpose in the Pain: Strong Character
”The will of God is love. And love suffers.” - Elizabeth Elliot
Love suffers. You, as a Hope Mommy, know this better than most anyone else. You were called to love, and you were called to suffer.
You are not alone. Jesus was also called to love and suffer. Because He loved us, He suffered on the cross and overcame the world. Jesus did not overcome the world with violence or with money or with political power. Jesus overcame with world with suffering. John 16:33
As daughters of God and co-heirs with Christ, we are to follow Him. We are to bear our own crosses; we are to suffer with Jesus.
“The Spirit ...
In the Word: A Secure Future
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.
“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father…Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the ...
Bear Much Fruit: Faithfulness
"I know, O Lord, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me."-Psalm 119:75
Dear sister, do you feel afflicted today? In the midst of your sorrow do you trust that our Father is faithful?
Before looking at the fruit of faithfulness, I want to take a step back and look first at faith. Hebrews 11:1 states that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” This means that despite not seeing, we believe and trust that God will be faithful to do as He promised.
What does faithfulness look like? The entire chapter of Hebrews 11 list acts of faith, such as Abraham, ...
Purpose in the Pain: Genuine Faith
I remember a conversation I had with a woman in my church who mentored me in the early days of my young marriage. She had several young children at the time, and one of her sons had been diagnosed with cancer. As she described the sadness and difficulty of their situation, she commented that while it was painful, she and her husband were grateful for the opportunity for their faith to be proven genuine. As they pressed on through the difficulty, they knew that their faith and trust in God was pleasing to Him.
My friend was living and breathing 1 Peter 1:6-7, which says, “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, ...
Freely Given, Freely Received: Extending Grace
Early on in my grief, I did not extend much grace when people would make insensitive comments after the death of my son. To be honest, most of the people had no idea their comments were insensitive.
A case in point: one day at the grocery store after the loss of my son, I was checking out with my two girls while I was very pregnant. The girl scanning my groceries looked at my large belly and my two little girls and asked if I was hoping for a boy. I saw my girls look at me, and I wanted to protect them and make sure they didn’t feel undervalued because of their gender. I replied, “I had a son, and he died.”
Poor grocery ...
Comforting Others
When I think of God’s comfort in the tender days following Anna’s death, I have memories of Him holding me close, carrying me through the dark wilderness of pain, and covering my eyes from a scary wilderness of towering trees marked with anger, fear, envy, and death itself. This is how I metaphorically imagined His loving shield of comfort in poetic terms. Although I could not see it, I knew from Scripture that He was going to safely carry me through all this heartache into the brightly lit opening of the forest on the other side.
I also remember the new way the Psalms comforted me after experiencing loss. I read over and over again ...
In the Word: Suffering Well
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.
"His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much.Enter into the joy of your master.’"Matthew 25:23
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Part of suffering well as Hope Moms is remembering what God has given to our children and letting those truths minister to us.
As mothers, we remember that our children have been taken to new eternal life in Christ ...
Bear Much Fruit: Goodness
Pastor: God is good …Congregation: All the time!Pastor: All the time …Congregation: God is good!
I would get all the feels and think to my young self, “So true!”
Then I went off to college and the hardships started coming in waves. Strong waves. My parents got divorced. God is good, all the time. I repeated to my shaken up self.
Then came marriage. Such a sweet thing to marry the love of my life. I found it a little easier to believe again that God is good, all the time.
Then came the drought. The losses. One after another. Six babies in total, with a failed adoption in the middle. I remember praying desperately, “How ...
