44 results for tag: Erin

Streams in the Desert {Part 3}

Quietly Attend I love this word, “Behold.” It’s used often in the Bible. It serves as a signpost. In our language and culture, it would be like a neon sign or writing in all caps; if it were an emoji, it would be something like this: ✋❗.  “Behold” is meant to make us pause. To stop and pay attention to what is about to be communicated. It had to do with quieting people in the presence of someone or some event of importance.  “Behold, your God will come…”  Truly, that is the most important event in all of history. God Himself was coming, as sure as the sun rises. And if we are not careful, we could breeze ...

Streams in the Desert {Part 2}

Behold The sky was slowly waking up, a pale white light rising over the horizon. The clouds shifted from darkness and became awash with color. I gripped my mug of tea a bit tighter, breathing in the mercy that was coming.  For weeks after Gwendolyn went Home, this became my routine. I would wake early (had I even slept?), steep a bag of vanilla rooibos in my travel mug, and walk through the stillness of our camp home toward the river. A new building was under construction, and I would sit on the balcony amidst the tools and sawdust, watching creation wake up and do what it was—tell the glory of the Creator. I was beholding without ...

Streams in the Desert {Part 1}

The Desert It was a suffocating emptiness from which I couldn’t escape. The barrenness of my womb; the silence in her nursery; the bleak look in my husband’s eyes. It was everywhere. Though I was rarely left by myself in those first few days and weeks, I felt unmoored and distant from all who were around me. Life had lost it’s brilliance when her life ended. The guttural cries of the biblical poets echoed my own: “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?” -Matthew 27:46 “I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath; he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light,” -Lamentations 3:1-2 ...

Why Hope Mommies is Different

I feel the need to reiterate the mission of Hope Mommies. There are too many support groups out there that do nothing more than support laziness in healing (ie: "Do whatever is best for you/makes you feel better/etc."), and Hope Mommies is not one of them. A support group should be about coming alongside a deeply wounded, theologically shattered person and pointing them to the Truth. Because no matter who you are, or what your belief system is, losing a child will radically alter what you believe about God—whether you think you believe in Him or not. And we believe that what you believe about God is the only thing that matters when your child ...

Hope Mommies Publication Release: Bright Hope, by Erin Cushman

"Bright Hope," by Erin Cushman will be released soon! We celebrate what God has done in faithfulness through Erin's writing and through those who have supported this publication in other ways. We want to give you an opportunity to hear from Erin today about how this book came to be, and Here is our interview Erin: 1. For those just “tuning in,” what is Bright Hope, and how did it come to be published? Bright Hope is a 28 Day Devotional for Grief in Light of the Gospel. Hope Mommies is coming up on their 10th year of ministry, and Jennie Parks (Executive Director of Hope Mommies) had asked if I would consider a new writing project to ...

Purposed: God is Near

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good… for those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified.”Romans 8:38-30 God's objective is to conform us to the image of His Son. He wants to make us like Christ, because that is our ultimate good. Psalm 73:28 says “But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord God my refuge....

Purposed: Nothing Is Wasted

Grief can play such destructive tricks on your mind. There were moments that I really thought I made up everything about my pregnancy—but knowing that Gwen is real, heaven is real, and I will really go there because of what Christ did for me was an anchor to my wild thoughts and a balm to my grieving heart. What is the big question that we ask ourselves, again and again? “Why? Why did this happen? Why me? Why my baby and my family?” While these are not unspiritual questions to ask, the Bible doesn’t always reveal the "why’s" of God. But, it does reveal His character and the assurance of His Spirit. So, when when we are plagued by ...

Purposed: Made For Eternity

“The LORD will fulfill His purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.”Psalm 138:8 I know that “purpose” is a big word—it carries some heavy weight. So before we really get into God’s purposes, I want us to consider this verse from Deuteronomy 29:29: “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” There are many things about God and His divinity that we can’t know—they are the ‘secret things’ that are for Him, for His glory. But sisters, He has revealed ...

Purposed: Hope Remains

Five years ago, I didn’t know about women like us. I didn’t know that miscarriage happens to 1 in 4 women; that stillbirth is 1 in 160, and that 6 out of every 1,000 infants in the US don’t live to see their first birthday. I was totally oblivious, until October 18, 2010. My Gwendolyn fit into the last category. After a perfect first pregnancy and 24 hours of labor in a birthing center, we lost her heartbeat. I was put on oxygen. I heard the terror in my midwives voices. I was rushed to the ER for an Emergency Cesarean. And when I woke, my husband told me that our little girl was in the NICU with heart and liver damage. And I still thought, ...

God Exists And Has Spoken To Us

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."Genesis 1:1   READ: What can we observe in this one sentence? There was a beginning. God was at the beginning. God is the Creator. This is not an explanation of how God came to be. With this one sentence, the reality of God is established as fact. He existed before anything else existed, and He had the power and authority to create the heavens and earth. The truth that God exists is evidenced not only from what the Bible says, but also from the created world around us. In Psalm 19:1-4, it says,   "The heavens proclaim the glory of God.The skies display His ...