33 results for tag: Kayla

Renewing Your Focus

New Year’s resolutions have a bad reputation. Often, our goal is to make this life as easy as possible, not regarding the Lord’s greater plan and trustworthiness, and elevating our own desires above His authority. We often find ourselves living with this temporary, humanistic view of time—we are impatient, frustrated in trials, lacking in perseverance, not living with eternity in mind, worrying, not trusting God for provision, or living in fear. Grief has tempted me to live this way. In missing my baby, I ache so fiercely that, sometimes, I simply just want it to end. Grief brings on fear, worry, and a difficulty in ...

Freely Given, Freely Received: Seeking Reconciliation

It was only a few weeks after Anna died and I could sense that she was pregnant. Why wouldn’t she just tell me and get it over with? And how could she hide this knowing how badly I hurt? I talked with my grief counselor about my fears. I expressed how hurt I was—as if my friend getting pregnant was a direct attack on me and my grief. I was jealous, I was envious, I was angry.  I wasn’t angry at God for allowing it, I was angry at her for letting this happen so soon after my loss. I realized it was incredibly selfish, but I needed time to heal first before dealing with a new baby so close to home. I felt so neglected by God in my ...

Comforting Others

When I think of God’s comfort in the tender days following Anna’s death, I have memories of Him holding me close, carrying me through the dark wilderness of pain, and covering my eyes from a scary wilderness of towering trees marked with anger, fear, envy, and death itself. This is how I metaphorically imagined His loving shield of comfort in poetic terms. Although I could not see it, I knew from Scripture that He was going to safely carry me through all this heartache into the brightly lit opening of the forest on the other side.  I also remember the new way the Psalms comforted me after experiencing loss. I read over and over again ...

When the Tears Won’t Stop…

God’s Word speaks thoroughly and abundantly into every season of the heart. As we study His Word, we learn that within its pages are found the ultimate source of comfort and peace for the sufferer. In this series, we will seek to carefully and compassionately apply these ancient, scriptural truths to feelings and experiences that are common in grief. I remember being in the hospital, not knowing when I’d leave, but knowing that it would be without my baby. The numbness and anxiety were too tense; the tears barely came. Oh how I wished I could cry hard to release the tension. Each night—somehow—the darkness and stillness would ...

Streams of Living Water

Welcome to Hope Mommies’ In the Word devotionals. Over the next several weeks, we will be studying Revelation 21 together, which gives us a beautiful picture of the eternity that awaits those who are in Christ . In this series, we seek to lift the grieving mother's eyes up towards heaven and the imperishable inheritance that is hers and her precious baby's in Christ. "And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment."Revelation 21:6 READ: The topic of eternity generates a variety of ...

Three Years Later

It can often seem as though you will always be drowning beneath the acute pain of loss. However, while our grief never truly ends, it doesn't always look and feel the same way. In this series, our writers speak from where they are now in their grief, _________ years later. Throughout this series, you will find testimonies of how grief has changed them, and how God has used their heartache to shape them into a greater reflection of His image. 3 years later.  One. Thank you, Lord, for sustaining me through that first year of deep, overwhelming grief that felt heavy and unrelenting. Thank you for carrying me through the waves that ...

He Has Set Eternity On Our Hearts

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 grief. "Also, He has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot&...

Hymns of Hope: What a Friend We Have in Jesus

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. My grief was overrun with the sin of fear and distrust. Out of that struggle, I learned to pray in a new way. I know that sounds so elementary, but I want to be honest about how groundbreaking this simple act was in my life after loss. Before loss, I loved learning about truth and reading Scripture. I could recall and apply many concepts and verses from God's Word. I had grown deeply in my intimacy ...

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 nurture, the heart of a mother, yet there is nobody to mother. Maternity clothes ...

Kayla’s 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. I’m sorrowful over simply being called to write this piece, To be able to express such lament, A lament over the loss of ...