1104 results for author: Ashlee Schmidt

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. {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 ...

Anna’s Story

Before our fifth pregnancy, my husband and I always had the motto, “However many kids the Lord wants us to have.” But when we got pregnant with our fifth child, my husband told me that he believed this would be our last child. I agreed, and the Lord gave me peace in my heart that it was the right decision for our family. My pregnancy was great, like all of my previous pregnancies had been, and as the time grew closer to our daughter’s arrival, we prepared for her as best as we could. As I went to bed, two days shy of being forty weeks, my husband put his hand on my belly because the baby was moving as she usual did. He moved his hand down near ...

He is Near to the Brokenhearted

God’s Word is filled with rich promises for His children. How do these “precious and very great promises” inform and direct your grief? How does keeping your eyes fixed on these truths anchor your hope in the Lord? In this series, we write about how God, through the promises in His Word, comforts and strengthens us in our sorrow. “The Lord is near the brokenhearted…" How can a God we cannot see, feel, or often times hear be near to us? Is God really near to us? The day after coming home from giving birth at 37 weeks to my perfectly formed—yet stillborn—baby boy, I flipped the Scripture card on my ...

Paige, Forever Held

We may have only carried our babies on this side of eternity for a short while, but they are forever held in our hearts. In this series, Hope Moms share how they have held their precious babies throughout the months and years following their home going. What has remembering your hope baby looked like for you? We would love to have you write about the traditions you have started to represent your hope baby in your holiday celebrations, family photos, home, etc., or how you celebrate their birthday or heaven day. Find out how you can share your story HERE. I could have never anticipated how physically empty my arms would feel in those days and ...

In the Word: Rejoicing the Heart (Part 2)

Welcome to Hope Mommies’ In the Word devotionals. Over the next several weeks, we will be studying Psalm 19:7-11 together.The grieving heart will often grasp at anything that seems to offer even the smallest glimmer of comfort. But every attempt to be comforted apart from God and His Word will only end in greater disappointment. In this series, we will be examining the richness of the Word, and discover how we, as Hope Moms, can find true and lasting comfort in Scripture.  REJOICING THE HEART “The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.” Psalm 19:8a READ: Grief and loss will surface good and ...

Chance, Forever Held

We may have only carried our babies on this side of eternity for a short while, but they are forever held in our hearts. In this series, Hope Moms share how they have held their precious babies throughout the months and years following their home going. What has remembering your hope baby looked like for you? We would love to have you write about the traditions you have started to represent your hope baby in your holiday celebrations, family photos, home, etc., or how you celebrate their birthday or heaven day. Find out how you can share your story HERE. It seems like just yesterday I held you in my arms. Your body so tiny, yet so ...

Baylee’s Story

Several weeks before my husband, David, left for Air Force Basic training, we found out I was pregnant with our first child. We’ve always held the belief that every life should be celebrated, so we would not hide our child’s life, no matter how brief. We weren’t “expecting” a baby. We had one. What we didn’t fully grasp were the chances of losing that baby. You hear the statistic that 1 in 4 pregnancies end in loss, but those odds are for other people, not for me and my baby. I’m glad of that naivety at times, because it allowed for pure celebration, undefiled by odds and statistics. We announced the news to our ...

He Will Deliver You

God’s Word is filled with rich promises for His children. How do these “precious and very great promises” inform and direct your grief? How does keeping your eyes fixed on these truths anchor your hope in the Lord? In this series, we write about how God, through the promises in His Word, comforts and strengthens us in our sorrow. “Call upon me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you will glorify Me.” Psalm 50:15 I could say these words with conviction when there was no trouble in my life. But when trouble came and I faced the death of my children, those were the days where I needed to know what His delive...

In the Word: Rejoicing the Heart (Part 1)

Welcome to Hope Mommies’ In the Word devotionals. Over the next several weeks, we will be studying Psalm 19:7-11 together. The grieving heart will often grasp at anything that seems to offer even the smallest glimmer of comfort. But every attempt to be comforted apart from God and His Word will only end in greater disappointment. In this series, we will be examining the richness of the Word, and discover how we, as Hope Moms, can find true and lasting comfort in Scripture.  REJOICING THE HEART “The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.” Psalm 19:8a READ: I sat on a worn armchair in my ...

Sarabeth, Forever Held

When I was 15, our family lost our youngest son and brother when he was stillborn due to anencephaly. Though not my own child, I loved him from the time I knew my mother was pregnant, and his passing impacted me deeply. I have thought about him often over the past 24 years, always wondering what life would be like with another brother, and always trying to remember him on his birthday.  Keeping that sweet baby boy in my memory has been one of the strongest reasons I want my own girls to grow up with a knowledge of their sister. Sarabeth was and is a gift, a precious blessing to our family from God, and we always want her life to be celebrated ...