A Mother’s Day Prayer
Lord, I pray for the precious momma
Who comes to You this Mother’s Day
With empty arms and a weary heart.
I ask you to wrap her in Your loving embrace and give her rest
For you are a shield around her and the lifter of her head (Psalm 3:3).
Where she is broken, bring healing.
Where she is lonely, draw near.
Where she is anxious, offer Your perfect peace.
For the eyes of all look to You
And You give what is needed (Psalm 145:15).
As she fixes her eyes on You,
Teach her how to love and grief well.
No one understands her pain better than You do.
You demonst...
Mother’s Day: Rejoicing in the Gift of Motherhood
This is the time of year where practically every advertisement you see is sharing gift ideas for moms. Store windows feature adorable matching mother and daughter outfits for spring. Kids come home from school trying to hide manilla envelops containing their carefully created handprint crafts, and flower shops scramble to keep up with the overwhelming influx of orders.
The origin of Mother’s Day, as it is celebrated today in the United States, dates back to the early 19th century. Before the start of the Civil War, Anne Reeves Jarvis started “Mothers’ Day ...
He Draws Near: Shelly’s Experience
As I sit down to write about “drawing near” I am currently being told to stay six feet away from my friends and others I love. The irony. I pray that by the time you are reading this, we are past the coronavirus crisis and are once again able to be near to those we love and proximally close to others in our community.
I grew up in a Christian home, so I was taught from an early age that Jesus loved me and was near to me at all times. Even with that knowledge, when my son was stillborn at 37 weeks, I needed to feel His nearness.
On my kitchen window, I ...
Sorrow Is Better Than Laughter
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 ...
Hymns of Hope: Be Still My Soul
Many of the hymns were born out of immense sorrow. In this series, we will examine these songs of old, discover the circumstances behind when they were written, and find comfort in the lyrics that so powerfully point us to the hope of Christ.
Many of us can think of specific hymns that have ministered to us in times of deep sadness and trial. “Be Still, My Soul” is one of those hymns for me. We chose to sing this hymn at my daughter’s funeral, and I sang it for months afterward when the silence of having no baby in the house became too much to bear. And ...
Anchored
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.
Have you ...
Chapter Spotlight: West Texas
What's happening in West Texas:
The West Texas chapter was formed in May, 2016 to help support the mission of Hope Mommies by sharing the hope of Jesus Christ and creating local support to moms and families experiencing pregnancy and infant loss. Our chapter has experienced a lot of change in the past year as we continued to grow daily in the number of families we support. This growth was beginning to take a toll on our leadership and volunteer team, which caused us to look at how we could better serve our area with our time and resources.
Prior to October, ...
Hymns of Hope: It is Well With My Soul
Many of the hymns were born out of immense sorrow. In this series, we will examine these songs of old, discover the circumstances behind when they were written, and find comfort in the lyrics that so powerfully point us to the hope of Christ.
Growing up in a Baptist church, “It Is Well With My Soul” was a very familiar hymn. It made the worship lineup at least every other month. At Bible camp, it was the song my friends and I selected to perform for Talent Show night (yes, we were super cool). Yet, in all of my times singing this beloved hymn, the lyrics ...
Theology Matters
Theology matters. As believers, we often hear that word and think it is only for pastors, seminary students, and Sunday school classes. But theology matters in every day life. Our understanding of God, His creation, and His plan matters in our day-to-day lives.
This has never been clearer to me than when my wife and I experienced our first miscarriage. As we worked through our sorrow, our theology was invaluable. It helped directed our grieving process and brought us great comfort in the midst of the pain. Here are three truths that helped us form a ...
Mothering With Empty Arms
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.
What does it look like to mother with empty arms, to mother on one side of heaven while your baby is on the other? It looks like having the heart of a nurturer with nobody to ...
