The Gift of Intimacy with Christ
“Oh, this thing of keeping in constant touch with God, of making Him the object of my thoughts and the companion of my conversations, is the most amazing thing I ever ran across. Now I like the Lord’s presence so much that when for a half hour or so He slips out of my mind—as He does many times a day—I feel as thought I had deserted Him, and as though I had lost something very precious in my life.”
-Frank Laubach
I stumbled across this quote the other day and was reminded of how incompletely I know God and the fullness of His presence. I want it to be so ...
Blessed Are Those Who Mourn
Grieving the loss of a child has a way of creating an urgent desire for solid, biblical answers for any theological questions that arise in the heart—what has God truly said in His Word about why this kind of pain exists in the world?
When this world feels devoid due to child loss, one’s attention can be well set upon knowing how to hope for another world. Hope is needed because all is not right. This cannot be it for us as people. The Christian hope, such a blessed hope, tells us that there is more to know than what only experiences can tell us.
Understanding what ...
Sarah’s Story
Of all the big moments in life, nothing has quite changed me like grief. Most moments close one chapter and open a new chapter. But grief practically changes your DNA. I will never see life or circumstance the same way again. After two normal, uncomplicated pregnancies, I took pregnancy for granted. So, when we went to the doctor with our third pregnancy and they couldn’t find the heartbeat, our whole world seemed to stop. On May 17, 2014, we had to say “hello” and “good-bye” to Solomon Elijah. God’s peace was tangible in the hospital room. We had friends who ...
A Prayer for the One Who is Afraid
The death of a child goes against the natural rhythms of life. Parents should not outlive their children. There is just something so incomprehensible about the sight of a tiny coffin at a funeral, the stillborn body of an infant, or a silent, motionless ultrasound screen. In these moments, there is something inside all of us that screams, "This is not right! This is not how things are supposed to be!"
When my son's heart stilled while his precious body was cradled within me, there wasn't a category in my mind to process this unimaginable grief. I was now living a ...
Blessed Are The Poor in Spirit
In Matthew chapter 5, we find at the beginning of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount a portion of His teaching that is commonly referred to as “The Beatitudes.” Over the next several weeks, we will be studying this passage of Scripture together as we seek to understand what it looks like for us to aspire to live in such a way as the following verses describe.
“Seeing the crowds, He [Jesus] went up on the mountain, and when He sat down, His disciples came to Him. And He opened His mouth and taught them, saying:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the ...
In the Word: To Know What is Right
Welcome to Hope Mommies In the Word devotionals. Over the next few weeks, we will be meditating on Psalm 19 together. As we study these truths 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 with us!
How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
You, who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?"...
Comfort For Hope Siblings: God Cares About Your Tears
Dear one, the loss of your sibling is such a tremendous burden for you to carry. The heaviness of loss has deeply affected you, even though you do not fully understand this grief. Death is still such an illusive and incomplete concept in your young mind. How can I help you understand?
These are heavy days for you. I wish I could shield you from the grief that fills our home.
There may be days when you feel unseen. As we all work through the loss of our precious baby in different ways, your own grief may not always be recognized. I am so sorry. I wish I knew how to ...
A Secure Future
It’s a strange thing to say that sorrow comes with a gift. And I hope that idea doesn’t come across as pithy or like something you’d see on one of those inspirational posters in a middle school counselor’s office or like one of those really bad sympathy cards with the pictures of clouds. But, when we experience grief in its many forms, it forces us to really think about what happens after death.
C.S. Lewis writes, “You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.”
Whether heaven exists ...
Mary’s Story
But Zion had said, ‘The Lord has forsaken me,the Lord has forgotten me’Can a woman forget her nursing child,that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.”Isaiah 49:14-15
“God, you are the God of miracles. Lord, please let this be a mistake.”
When I realized the lines on my home pregnancy tests were getting progressively lighter, my heart broke. It was July 2019, my first pregnancy, and the burst of euphoria at learning I would be a mother swallowed me whole until the day I miscarried.
It was ...
A Prayer for the One Who Is Weary
The loss of a child is a heavy burden filled with so much complexity. The multifaceted intersections of grief often fill us with a weariness that is felt in the deepest recesses of our souls—emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical weariness. No part of us is left untouched.
Maybe today, the weariness in you is manifested in a struggle to get out of bed or perform simple tasks around the house. Perhaps you are experiencing a mental fog that leaves you hardly able to focus on anything. You might find yourself opening up your Bible to spend time with the Lord, only to ...
