19 results for tag: Grieving Together

Be Devoted to One Another: His Story

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” -Romans 12:9-12 Romans 12 is really a remarkable chapter. It encourages us to use our differing gifts to build one another up (vv. 3-8). It goes on to define the love we are called to have for each other; one that is sincere, dedicated to goodness, devoted, self-sacrificing, and zealously serving to God’s glory (vv. 9-11). Finally, Paul describes the outworking of this ...

Honor One Another: Her Story

“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in Him.” -Lamentations 3:24 2006 started off as a year filled with promise. Wondering if the Lord may choose to add a fifth baby to our growing family, and desiring to be open to Him and His blessing in our lives, we pressed on in anticipation that this year would be a year filled with hope. His answer seemed to come quickly as almost instantly we discovered that we would be welcoming a new little one in the fall.  My previous pregnancies had been mostly uneventful, with some complicated deliveries. For the most part our experiences hadn’t proven too difficult. There was no ...

Honor One Another: His Story

It was a startling wake up I wasn’t expecting. “Ken, I think I lost the baby!” Quickly our plans for this Easter day faded and the new plan included a trip to the hospital.   The celebration of Easter or Resurrection Day is about life—Christ risen to life after a cruel death, and new life for all who believe because Christ rose from the grave. Easter 2006 was a celebration of life but not in the way we had expected. After having four children without major pregnancy complications, and currently at 16 weeks without any issues, a miscarriage was not even on our radar. But God had different plans for this Resurrection morning. Waiting for my ...

Pray For One Another: Her Story

"Our prayers may be awkward. Our attempts may be feeble. But since the power of prayer is in the one who hears it and not in the one who says it, our prayers do make a difference." - Max Lucado I’ve always thought of my husband as having a heart of gold. He is my best friend, my soulmate, and the one who always seems to make things right. I could listen to him read Scripture and encouraging words all day if I could. My sweet man has a way with words and I am loved so well by him. When we fell in love and knew we wanted to get married, we both agreed that premarital counseling was the best first step. Our spiritual walks were at an all time ...

Pray For One Another: His Story

It's been said before, you really can't understand somebody's pain until you walk through it yourself. As men, we are wired to try to fix things. However, the loss of our son was something I could not fix. I remember standing in the delivery room and looking at Nelly as the nurse said, "Your water broke." I called for the doctor. My mind kept racing. "No God! No God! This is not what we had planned! Corbin is not going to make it! It's too early for him!” With all of our family in the waiting area, we welcomed Corbin into this world on March 27, 2014 at 5:38pm. Our precious Corbin lived for two hours and three minutes. I suddenly was in disbelief ...

Love One Another: Her Story

I watched from the window as he helped our oldest daughter hang a hand-painted sign on our backyard fence. It said: “We Love You, Chase.” This sign was my daughter’s decoration for our son’s “celebration of life.” Our baby’s funeral was something I never dreamed we would host in our backyard that autumn of 2009. Our lawn was perfectly manicured and had been transformed with a rainbow of color displayed in planted flowers, balloons and painted decorations.  My sweet husband had made this happen, after listening to me cry and brainstorm and wonder about Chase’s service through a sleepless night, just a few days before. This act ...

Love One Another: His Story

It was a typical weekend filled with family activities in late September 2009. Chelsea was 36 weeks pregnant with Chase and we were both trying to keep up with his three big sisters—Kendyll (7), Carlie (5) and Abby Kate (2.5). The long hot Texas summer was nearly behind us. We were in the homestretch of this fourth pregnancy, and simply ready for this new era as a family of six to begin. We completed all of the typical "night before church” routines—baths, hair-drying, and story time, and announced to the girls that we were going to see a live Broadway style performance of Mary Poppins after church the next day. We finally got in bed ourselves, ...

Encourage One Another: Her Story

“Put courage in.” That’s what the word “encourage” means. In my story, courage to face the lonely days, the quiet nursery, the empty womb, the unfilled baby book, the days and days that stretched ahead that mocked me with their childlessness --- courage was one of the many things I needed. Like all grievers, I had days when I felt completely unable to function, let alone face the day with courage and hope. That is where my incredible husband Blair was such a powerful force of God’s healing work in my grieving heart. Gwendolyn Hope was born via emergency cesarean in October of 2010, and died 36 hours later as one by one her body ...

Encourage One Another: His Story

Therefore encourage one another with these words. -1 Thessalonians 4:18 Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. -1 Thessalonians 5:11 Both of these verses in 1 Thessalonians come immediately after sections of Scripture where Paul the author is giving us a glimpse into things that will happen in the end times. After cracking the window into the future for us Paul concludes with “go encourage one another. Go build each other up.” I fear that the norm is actually the opposite when we think of the events, both marvelous and terrifying, that must take place when the world as we know it comes to an end. We ...

Be Patient With One Another: Her Story

Someone has said, “Patience is love on the anvil, bearing blow after blow of suffering.” Long ago, the Apostle Paul expressed it this way: “Be patient, bearing with one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2).      And in his famous “love chapter” from I Corinthians 13, Paul said it like this:    “Love is patient…”    The first of 15 qualities that Paul ascribes to love is patience. Long-suffering. Literally “long-fused”. Slow to anger. Bearing with another’s imperfections, faults, and differences.  Just a couple of years ago, after 24 years of marriage, Peter and I thought we knew what it meant to “be patient, bearing ...