The Lord Will Fulfill His Purpose For Me
"Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."Philippians 1:6
I blinked, and the years have passed right in front of me. Every year when the page on our calendar turns to July, my heart stops just as it did that early morning in late July, 2010, when two doctors stood in front of our family and told us that Landry did not have much longer to live.
As I focus on that day and how different my life and family look now, I am reminded over and over that the Lord will fulfill His purposes for ...
Such a Wide Freedom
Everyone's grief is unique and your stage in the process of healing as a Hope Mom might be such that this post is not an ideal read for you right now. I want to make you aware in advance that I am writing about my pregnancy after loss. Most of all, I desire that this post give hope of the freedom that comes with inviting God into grief. With love, Lianna
There is a baby growing inside of me today. My husband and I are in disbelief. We are 15 weeks along in this pregnancy and our daughter, Noelle, whom we lost at 42 weeks, would have ...
Kristin’s Story
On July 20, 2018, our third child was due to join our family. Her room was pink, her brothers were excited, her Dad and I were ecstatic for a girl. It felt so different this time. We had all the ideas of bows and frilly things, and had decided exactly what her wedding day would be like.
Our firstborn came at 31 weeks after a quick and scary bout with preeclampsia, so this pregnancy they watched my blood pressure carefully. On July 6th, I was 38 weeks, and that afternoon I got a high blood pressure reading on my cuff at home. I called the nurse and she asked me to ...
Who Needs Friends?
After college, I moved to Chicago for a change of pace. I wanted—and needed —to spread my wings, abandon my safety zone of family for a time, and learn what it meant to fully depend on the Lord. Being 22, I thought the idea of learning loneliness sounded so romantic in a tragic sort of way. I pictured myself strolling the streets of the windy city, coffee mug in hand, with a cute sweater and scarf and with the soundtrack of Natalie Merchant crooning in the background.
What I learned is that loneliness is not romantic. Coffee and cute scarves are too expensive ...
Remember Your Creator
Welcome to Hope Mommies’ In the Word devotionals. Over the next several weeks, we will be studying the book of Ecclesiastes together, which centers on the truth that life apart from Christ is empty and vain. In its pages, we discover how to view our lives with an eternal perspective, enabling us to press into the Lord regardless of our circumstances. In this series, we seek to explore the wise principles presented to us by "the Teacher" in order to better understand what it looks like to walk in the fear and joy of the Lord even in the midst of our ...
Where Were You?
After my loss at 18 weeks, I found myself unable to listen to Christian music or hymns without bursting into tears, and my voice couldn’t find the strength to utter any of the words. It was just so hard to sing “it is well with my soul” when my soul hadn’t healed. As the entire church sang “Good Good Father” my harsh reality seemed in stark contrast to the joyous noise surrounding me. You bet I believed those words, but my wound was still so raw.
I knew God was good, even though I didn’t feel any bit good at the time. I hoped if I said, “God ...
Seeking the Lord in the Midst of the Valley
The nature of infant loss occurring in 1 out of 4 pregnancies, means that there are new women joining our community on a weekly basis. Over the next few weeks, we want to repost some of our earliest blog articles to encourage the dear mommas that have recently joined the ministry and community of Hope Mommies. Although these posts may have been written many years ago, the truths they contain remain the same. God is enough. He has always been enough. And as we place our hope in Him, we will find that He is our anchor in the midst of this storm of grief.
Pain. ...
Carly’s Story
My husband, Josh, and I found out we were pregnant shortly after Thanksgiving in 2019. To be quite honest, I was very anxious and fearful about it because this child would be my fourth C-Section, and we had experienced complications with our third son that could affect this pregnancy. I brought my fears before the Lord (at the time I was mostly fearful that I would die in childbirth, leaving my husband and children behind) and He comforted me greatly as I read in 1 Thessalonians 5: 9-11.“For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord ...
The Good Shepherd Guides His Sheep
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.
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” John 10:11
The day before we found out our daughter, Lydia, had died, my husband and I were reading this passage in John 10. We spent some ...
It Is Well, Even When It Isn’t
I was pregnant for the fourth time in under three years. I’d had a chemical pregnancy, then I had my daughter, Lily, then I had a miscarriage. It was the day of my six-week appointment. I spent the morning daydreaming about being in that darkened ultrasound room, holding my husband’s hand, and seeing the rapid flutter of our healthy baby’s heartbeat on the sonographer’s screen.
Then there was blood. Not a lot, but not none.
I placed 18-month-old Lily in her highchair with her milk and lunch and began circling the kitchen island praying ...
