Planned by God
“Imagine a priceless vase or ornament is dropped on the floor and smashed to pieces. The woman who loved it kneels down. She picks up the pieces, one by one. She looks at each one in detail, turning it round, as if to remember where it once belonged. The vase was loved and so when it was shattered, every piece was worth picking up, no matter how small. A grieving person will often want to talk about the smallest detail of their loss. It is as if every broken piece is taken up and wept over. When you listen, you may feel that the detail was small, but it is part of ...
Holly’s Story
Back in the Summer of 2015, my husband and I found out we were pregnant with our third child. By October, we had traded in my sedan for a minivan. Early on in the pregnancy, I had a subchorinoic hemmorage and had significant bleeding. My HGC numbers were lower than expected, and combined with the bleeding, I was certain I had miscarried. My husband and I were shocked and thrilled when we found out I was carrying a healthy baby. The pregnancy was moving along like my previous healthy pregnancies, and I even began to feel regular movement around 15 weeks. In October, I found ...
Liz’s Story
My husband Andy and I have two beautiful girls, and we were debating whether or not to have another baby. We didn’t really feel strongly one way or another, but wanted to be obedient to the Lord. So we decided to start trying and see what God had in store for us. The second month of trying and bam! Pregnant. It took 5 or 6 months to get pregnant with the girls and the baby that we named Birch and lost at 9 weeks (between our girls), so we were absolutely shocked. As we wrapped our heads around the idea of being a family of 5, our excitement grew. We dreamed of a ...
Testimony Tuesday {Brandi’s Retreat Experience}
My name is Brandi Popke, and I am Hope Mom to Madison and Hannah. Madison would be 12 this year and Hannah would be 10. Both of my girls were born full term, but only lived a few hours due to Polycystic Kidney Disease. It was just this last year that I learned about the Hope Mommies community and the support it offers on social media. I had no idea the amount of support was so great until I went to the retreat in March.
I signed up for the retreat as soon as I came across the information online—completely terrified and excited at the same time. Other than my ...
Jen’s Story
I still remember when we announced we were pregnant. We were so excited and blessed to be pregnant with our third child on earth. This would be our fifth time being pregnant. In between our two living children, Addison and Austen, we had lost two babies in a row—10 weeks with the first and 5 weeks with the second. We had experienced losses, so we knew how blessed we were to be pregnant again. My whole pregnancy was going so well. I decided not to do the genetic testing, so instead we were scheduled for an ultrasound. I was 21 weeks. We were so nervous, but our nerves ...
October 15 Is This Sunday
In a letter to a dear friend, John Newton—who wrote Amazing Grace—expressed hope in Christ babies who go ahead of us: “I cannot be sorry for the death of infants. How many storms do they escape!” When we dwell upon the fullness of joy that our Hope Babies are experiencing right now in heaven with God—and while we miss them dearly every day—we cannot be sorry for them, can we? Nothing is better than to be with Christ; this glorious reality is beyond comprehension. What gratitude is stirred in my soul as I think about this gift!
Many ...
Q: Why Me? Why Do I Have to Go through This?
This Q&A series is intended to help you take steps forward in wisdom. Lay your questions before Scripture with us; find in the ashes that wisdom “will place on your head a graceful garland; she will bestow on you a beautiful crown” (Prov. 4:9). What questions about grief, God, or the Bible do you have right now? Contact us here.
“It’s Not Fair!” cries the sister as her older sibling is allowed to do something that she cannot as yet do. Perhaps most of us can remember being that sibling who thought our parents were not ...
Testimony Tuesday {Amy’s Retreat Experience}
It’s not something you sign up for, or even a thing that passes through your mind when you make a commitment of faith to leave all and follow His plan for your life. When I moved to Bucharest, Romania to work as a missionary with orphan kids, I couldn’t have ever imagined where my life would take me. Would I have still come, If I knew?
I can still remember being led down a long white hall, the kind from communist times, which is no surprise since Romania has recently come out of all that. I was led into a hospital room that seemed darker than usual. I was left alone ...
Ending on Loss; Ending on Redemption
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.
My eyes opened as the sun started to shine through the curtains in room 307. The room where just hours before I met and said goodbye to my only son, Chance Michael. The room ...
Sheri’s Story
My husband, Ron, and I have been married for 14 years. We first met in 2003, and we knew instantly that God had brought us together. We were married four months later. We had discussed children and always said it was in God’s hands if or when we had any. When Ron was 18 he had a brain tumor. He had surgery, chemo and radiation—and is completely healed. Because of the chemo and radiation, he was told that chances were pretty high that he wouldn’t be able to have children.
Fast forward eight years, and I wasn’t surprised that we hadn’t conceived yet. We just ...
