33 results for tag: Lindsey

Finding Rest in the Lord

Rest. If there was one thing that seemed to elude me in the days, months, and years following the loss of my first two daughters, it was rest. Every part of my being was weary and overwhelmed by the simplest tasks. Little vacations here and there that were supposed to invite some sort of respite did nothing to reprieve me of the pain of loss searing through my bones. I struggled to find some experience, some place, some outlet that would calm my often anxious, lonely, and sad heart. I prayed in the year after the loss of my second daughter that it would be a year of rest. It was nothing of the sort. That is, it was nothing like how I would have ...

I Wish You Knew: What Really Helps

Often in our grief, those closest to us do not know how to comfort and encourage us. Sometimes they stay away or don’t say anything at all because they are afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing. In this series, we hope to better equip those around us to come alongside a grieving mother—to enter their hurt and offer hope and encouragement, or simply grieve with them. “Let me know if you need anything, I’d love to help.” It’s the phrase I heard most often after I lost my first two daughters. A well meaning statement, but a difficult one to know how to answer in the midst of the intense grief that follows the devastating loss of a ...

Growing in Grief With Your Spouse

It was just a month or so after our first daughter had passed away and my husband went out for some fun with a buddy of his. I was a bit aghast at the thought. How could he go out and have “fun” when we had just lost our daughter? For much of the initial weeks after her death our grief had been quite similar. We had shed many tears together, felt each other’s pain and it seemed were navigating grief in the same ways. Until we weren’t. And simply because my husband’s expression of grief was different than mine, I thought my husband had stopped grieving. I most certainly had not. What I didn’t realize was how differently two people ...

Seeing Myself in Hannah’s Story

In May of 2012, I walked down the aisle to the song “How Great Is Our God.” I was 33, my husband 34, and it had felt like we had waited an eternity for each other. Perhaps it didn’t feel like that to my now husband, Kevin. He’s much less dramatic than me. I knew that I wanted our wedding to be a taste of the wedding we’re really created for. The one where we meet our Savior, face to face, where we sit at the great wedding feast that will go down as the one for the ages, and praise the One who was faithful to us in the midst of our unfaithfulness. That day in May was perhaps one of the most purely joyful days of my life. Yet, I could ...

Awakened to Motherhood

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 began to taste the beauty of motherhood not when I conceived my first child but when I first began to give my life away in ministry to other women at the age of 13. Does that seem strange? It’s hard to imagine that 13 is the age when many in ancient times became ...

Grief and Sod: Part 2

... continued from Thursday's post “Don’t rush the grass,” my counselor said, as I retold to her the story. Oh how quick we are in our western culture to want the dirt gone and the grass grown as quickly as possible. And so it is with grief; we don’t want to do the hard work of entering into the grief process, of letting it be uncomfortable and messy for an unpredictable amount of time (Grief never lets you know when it will start to loosen its grip). We just want the end result, the beauty, the redemption, the truths tied up with pretty bows, “here’s what I’ve learned” and on we go. Well, at least that’s what I would like sooner ...

Grief and Sod: Part 1

It was what would’ve been Dasah’s two-month birthday but instead of taking cute photos of her I was standing at her gravesite for the first time since we buried her. It was a beautiful day and somehow as I was driving that day I found myself turning at the road that goes into the cemetery instead of just driving by as I usually do. Whenever anyone says they’ve just “found themselves” somewhere I’ve always thought they must be a little crazy. Who just “finds themselves” somewhere? Well, that day I became that crazy person. I think of turning every time I’ve driven by and just can never seem to muster up the energy to face whatever ...

God’s Goodness to Me

We are great at declaring God’s goodness when He does something for us, when He shows up in the way we had prayed for and hoped—when He provides, when He heals. I heard a story of a man who was reading his Bible on a train when it crashed and killed many. He told a reporter, “I don’t know why I didn’t die, why I’m still alive…God is so good.” While I do not disagree with his statement, or think we shouldn’t declare God’s goodness when He spares our lives, heals, and provides, I just couldn’t help but think of the questions that may appear on the hearts of all the families who did lose someone on that train, the families who know ...

When Joy Feels Illusive…

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. Something was stirring in my heart, an unexpected joy and hope that seemed to grow deeper by the day. Kevin and I would read a Psalm each night and briefly share something that stuck out to us in the chapter before we prayed and fell asleep. One night we were reading Psalm 30. It was ...

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 difficult book to navigate to be sure), I was struck by a single phrase from ...