Links for Hope Moms: Spring 2020 Edition
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.
{Even If Not, He is Still Good: Lessons from Habakkuk} // "Earlier this year, we were expecting our first son, Joshua. On April 1st, we woke up excited to see his sweet little body at our anatomy scan, only to face one of the deepest valleys of our lives. Sometime before our twenty-week scan, the Lord saw fit to take Joshua home. We went into the hospital to deliver that evening and went through ...
Easter Mourning
Never did the resurrection bring such comfort to my weary heart as when I first found out that my baby’s heart had stopped beating. I was suddenly faced with the reality of death and all that it had stripped me of—all of the firsts and all the memories that would never be experienced, the innocence and care-free naivety of pregnancy, and the sense of “completeness” for our family. Something—someone—would always be missing. Fear and anxiety now had greater access to my heart through the terrible wound that was opened in the wake of my child’s death. Grief ...
Consider the Cross
As mothers who have heard the words, “there is no heartbeat,” who have held the lifeless body of their precious baby, or who have watched their child take their final breath, the cross tells us that we are not alone. This day that we call “Good Friday” is the day that God watched His only Son die. Our God can and does empathize with us in our sorrow, because He has felt it too.
That cross—it is heart-wrenching and bloody. It is shameful and full of rejection. It is painful, and terrifying, and yet so beautiful.
When I begin to think about what my Savior ...
Sharing Your Hope Baby With Siblings
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.
“I have a brother. He’s five years old. He died in my mama’s tummy before it was time for him to come out. He doesn’t live with us, but he is alive. He is in heaven!...
Chapter Spotlight: Albuquerque Chapter
What's happening in Albuquerque:
It has been such a blessing for our team to continue supporting moms and families here in our Albuquerque community, and our chapter of Hope Mommies had a wonderful year of growth, connection, and service in 2019! Throughout the year, we held monthly coffee nights in which moms in our area got to meet one another, share stories, and pray together. We hosted in-person Hope Groups for a summer mini-series, and we dove into the Identity study in the fall.
We also hosted Hope Box gatherings to help supply hospitals, give ...
Lindsey’s Story
My husband, Josh, and I started trying to get pregnant in January of 2017, and it took us almost two years to get pregnant with our first baby. We found out at 12 weeks that our sweet baby girl didn’t have a heartbeat anymore. We were completely devastated. While attempting to heal from our first loss, we decided to start trying again right away because we didn’t know if it would take a while again. To our great surprise and delight, I was pregnant again after our first month of trying.
The first 34 weeks of pregnancy were so smooth. My husband is the youth ...
My First Time With Other Babies Born When Mine Was Due
A few weeks after I miscarried my first baby, a close friend who hadn’t even told us she was trying to conceive, warned me about thirty minutes before our small group girl’s accountability meeting that she had been trying to conceive, and was in fact pregnant. I did a decent job in that moment of putting on a happy face and faking excitement. But during the ten minute drive from where she and I had coffee to the house where we were having group, I began to unravel at the seams. By the time I arrived, my heart was bitter and angry, and I was barely holding it ...
Three Books For Your 2020 Reading List
Today, I want to share with you aspects I appreciate of three books, which might be helpful and encouraging additions to your 2020 reading list.
For All Who Grieve: Navigating the Valley of Sorrow and Loss (Smith). This work is authored by my former pastor (prior to our family’s recent cross-country move). In addition to being an author and pastor, Smith is a council member with The Gospel Coalition and president/teacher of Unlocking the Bible. Here is my endorsement of For All Who Grieve: “For all those who grieve: Discover how tears are released and seen by God, ...
Yet I Will Rejoice
Welcome to Hope Mommies’ In the Word devotionals. Over the next several weeks, we will be studying the book of Habakkuk together. In this book, we gain insight into how God is at work on our behalf even when we can't always see it. Join us in the weeks ahead as we discover the God who is who carefully and lovingly crafted you, and lovingly created the gift of your child for which you now long. He has not carried you thus far simply to leave you on your own, but will be your Guide and your Strength.
Even Though
"Even though the fig trees ...
The Offering of Lament
To lament is to turn to God in honest, desperate prayer, expressing the reality of our emotions—as intense and tumultuous as they may be. Ultimately, a lament is an expression of faith in the God who hears our cries and responds with mercy and grace. In this series, we seek to write our own laments in the style of the Psalmists, beginning by giving voice to the real and raw emotions that accompany our grief, and then lifting our eyes heavenward in trust and adoration of the One who is greater than all of our sorrow.
As I was reading in Leviticus this past week (a ...
