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GPS Hope

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September 22, 2020 by Laura Diehl 2 Comments

75: You Are in His Hands

Isaiah 62:3 is a scripture that has had a special meaning to me for several years now. It says, “You shall be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord.”

What does that mean? How can that possible apply to us after the death of our child?

A few years ago, God used this verse to show me how we can transform our lives to live out our rightful royal place in His Kingdom, no matter what we have been through on this earth, including the death of our child.

I believe there are three parts which will allow us to see the crown, wear the crown and be the crown of glory in Isaiah 62:3.  In this episode, I share about the crown of our identity.

 

Links Mentioned in this episode:

Read about the story (and song) behind the name of Crown of Glory.

See and order Keep Calm and Be the Crown T-shirt

Contact GPS Hope to let us know where you are located send an email: office@gpshope.org

Please remember to give this podcast a rating and review to help other parents who are looking for something that will encourage them.

Click here to become a monthly partner, giving hope to other parents, or to give a special gift to keep this podcast going, along with providing  other needed resources to bereaved parents.

(GPS Hope is a 501c3 nonprofit and runs on the financial support of those who believe in passing along the hope they have received to others.)

 

Birthdays:

Ryan Bradley was born on September 22 and is forever 25.

Brittany Evans was born on September 25 and is forever 26.

Cody Simmons was born on September 25 and is forever 25.

Cherie Martinez was born on September 28 and is forever 31.

If you would like your child mentioned on the podcast the week of his or her birthday, click here to fill out the short form with the needed information.

The special song written for our children’s birthdays I Remember Well can be heard here.

 

Remember to Hold On Pain Eases; there is HOPE!

www.gpshope.org

 

To have Laura come and minister at your event, contact us at office@gpshope.org.

Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope) is here to walk with parents through the darkness of child-loss, guiding them to a place of hope, light and purpose.

It is a safe place for anyone who has lost a child from this earth. There is no shame or judgment in where you are in this journey, including if you are struggling in your relationship with God or your faith has been completely shattered.

September 15, 2020 by Laura Diehl 2 Comments

74: Why Doesn’t God Seem to Care About Me and My Pain?

Lately I have been hearing from several of you, “I know my child is in heaven and no longer has to deal with pain and suffering, but what about me? What about my family? Why doesn’t God seem to care how much pain we are in from my child’s death?”

This has been tugging on me, so I decided to devote a podcast episode to this topic. This episode is from my heart, sharing a word I believe came from God on this, and my own insight on some things God has shown me since the death of my own daughter that might help soften some of these kinds of frustrations.

 

Links Mentioned in this episode:

Information on the multiple award-winning book When Tragedy Strikes: Rebuilding Your Life With Hope and Healing after the Death of Your Child.

Information to join GPS Hope on a cruise

Please remember to give this podcast a rating and review to help other parents who are looking for something that will encourage them.

Click here to become a monthly partner, giving hope to other parents, or to give a special gift to keep this podcast going, along with providing  other needed resources to bereaved parents.

(GPS Hope is a 501c3 nonprofit and runs on the financial support of those who believe in passing along the hope they have received to others.)

 

Birthdays:

Justin Seehafer was born on September 16 and is forever 28.

Rodney Lorenz was born on September 18 and is forever 49.

Alistair James Fleming was born on September 19 and is forever 26.

Nathan Young was born on September 19 and is forever 19.

If you would like your child mentioned on the podcast the week of his or her birthday, click here to fill out the short form with the needed information.

The special song written for our children’s birthdays I Remember Well can be heard here.

 

Remember to Hold On Pain Eases; there is HOPE!

www.gpshope.org

 

To have Laura come and minister at your event, contact us at office@gpshope.org.

Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope) is here to walk with parents through the darkness of child-loss, guiding them to a place of hope, light and purpose.

It is a safe place for anyone who has lost a child from this earth. There is no shame or judgment in where you are in this journey, including if you are struggling in your relationship with God or your faith has been completely shattered.

September 8, 2020 by Laura Diehl Leave a Comment

73: My Child Seemed to Know

I like to find out what topics you, the listeners, would like to have discussed, and one of them is this topic of our children who seemed to know that their time here on earth was going to be short.

This could be a rough one, but since some of you have been asking, I decided to take it on.

I also decided to branch out a bit on a similar topic of our children who let us know they didn’t want to die.

Why does any of this matter? What’s the point of talking about all of this?

I share that as well, and close with a prayer over all of us as we continue to walk this unwanted journey together.

 

Links Mentioned in this episode:

 

Information to join GPS Hope on a cruise

Please remember to give this podcast a rating and review to help other parents who are looking for something that will encourage them.

Click here to become a monthly partner, giving hope to other parents, or to give a special gift to keep this podcast going, along with providing  other needed resources to bereaved parents.

(GPS Hope is a 501c3 nonprofit and runs on the financial support of those who believe in passing along the hope they have received to others.)

 

Birthdays:

Jacob Sorouri was born on September 8 and is forever 32.

Kelli Diane Kirby was born on September 10 and is forever 31.

If you would like your child mentioned on the podcast the week of his or her birthday, click here to fill out the short form with the needed information.

The special song written for our children’s birthdays I Remember Well can be heard here.

 

Remember to Hold On Pain Eases; there is HOPE!

www.gpshope.org

 

To have Laura come and minister at your event, contact us at office@gpshope.org.

Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope) is here to walk with parents through the darkness of child-loss, guiding them to a place of hope, light and purpose.

It is a safe place for anyone who has lost a child from this earth. There is no shame or judgment in where you are in this journey, including if you are struggling in your relationship with God or your faith has been completely shattered.

September 6, 2020 by Laura Diehl Leave a Comment

When the Bible Seems to Contradict Life

In 1985 my world was turned upside down when our three-year-old daughter, Becca, was diagnosed with osteogenic sarcoma – bone cancer. Her tiny little left leg was amputated, and she went through nine months of chemotherapy.

God spared her life at that time. However, we found out several years later that an unknown long-term effect of one of the chemo drugs used was heart damage.

She was married at the young age of nineteen and became pregnant within the first few months. Because pregnancy causes such a stress on the heart, it escalated her moderate heart damage to the point of only being given a 50/50 chance of surviving the labor and delivery, whether it was by cesarean or vaginally.

God spared both her life and the life of our precious little granddaughter, and we were very thankful. But from that point on, her weakened heart was a major issue in her life.

For the next nine years she dealt with heart issues. They became so severe she needed to be placed on the heart transplant list but wasn’t healthy enough. On Becca’s 28th birthday, she had major heart surgery, putting in a pump to run the left side of her heart. For the next eighteen months, she had several major life-and-death issues, which caused a dozen ambulance rides and three med flight helicopter trips to her hospital, forty miles away.

On October 12, 2011, our daughter’s heart finally gave out, and she crossed over to meet Jesus face-to-face and to receive her full and complete healing. (Details of Becca’s story can be read by clicking here.)

Why am I sharing all of this? Because as someone who has lost a child through death, and as someone who grew up believing the Bible is God’s Word, the two can be hard to reconcile.

Before my daughter Becca died, there are so many verses that I could agree with, and cheer for as the truth in my life.  But now, there are many verses that I have to dig into for a deeper meaning, because what I thought some of those scriptures meant, no longer made sense in my deep pain and confusion.

For instance, Ephesians 3:20 tells us that God is “able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or imagine, according to the power that works in us.” I used to love that verse, because I could imagine a lot of good things, believing God would do even more than those great and wonderful things I could imagine! And that included awesome things for my kids. Yahoo!

But when the Holy Spirit showed me how to see that verse in a totally different way after Becca died, it became very precious to me. When we are in that place of suffocating darkness after the death of our child, we can’t ever imagine coming out of the darkness. We can’t imagine we can learn how to live a life of meaning and purpose without our child here. We can’t imagine living out the rest of our lives in so much pain, just living in a shell wanting and waiting to die to go be with our child.

But God can! God not only imagines all of that, He can do way above and beyond what we thought was possible in our lives. So often we can only imagine darkness for the rest of our time here on earth. But He can do so much more than what we can imagine. He can bring light. He can bring hope. He can give us a life of meaning and purpose again, not in spite of our child’s death, but because of his or her life!

Here’s another one.

1 Corinthians 2:9 says, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined the things that God has prepared for those who love him” (GW). This was a verse that used to be so exciting to me! God has more for me than I could ever imagine! Wow! How awesome is that? Lay it on me, God!

Let me just say, the darkness and pain of my daughter’s death was definitely more than I could have imagined, and it is not awesome, it is horrible!

But wait…let me share with you what I have discovered. This verse isn’t talking about the great life we are going to have with awesomeness and wonderful things being poured out on us continually. It is talking about the mystery of the death of Jesus, and how God was going to use it so that our “faith would not be based on human wisdom but on God’s power” at work in us (verse 5).  Now that is a real wow; much deeper than the shallow “bless me with all kinds of good stuff, and I will follow You” kind of belief in God.

Verse 12 says, “We didn’t receive the spirit that belongs to the world. Instead, we received the Spirit who comes from God so that we could know the things which God has freely given us.” So what has God freely given us?

How about for a start:

  • Comfort
  • Peace in the storms (or tsunamis) of life beyond our own understanding
  • Hope
  • Joy that goes beyond our circumstances
  • Triumph and victory over tragedy
  • Resurrection power and life from death

I now see these verses in 1 Corinthians and Ephesians as more of a promise for those of us who have been thrown into a place of deep darkness. It is God’s promise that He is going to bring us out in a way that we can’t see or hear right now, and we can’t even imagine how, in our place of darkness. This new understanding makes a whole lot more sense to me than using this scripture as a u-rah-rah-Go-God type of verse to be excited about Him being some sort of Santa Clause bringing us all kinds of fun presents.

How about you? Are you in a place of deep struggle, wondering how God could possibly tell us He has so many good things for us? Is He lying to us? Was that just something to make us think He is good, to deceive us into believing in Jesus as our Savior? Let me answer that with a resounding no! God is good. Not only is He good, but He is perfect in all of His ways, or He would no longer be God. If I could turn Him into a magic genie to make my wishes come true, He would no longer be big enough to be God.

It comes down to a matter of trust. Do I trust that He can see what I cannot see? Do I trust that He can hear what I cannot hear? Do I believe that He knows the full picture, and that what I am going through fits into the plan of eternity, way beyond what my finite mind can comprehend of life here and now on earth?

I choose to believe the richness of the full depth of 1 Corinthians 2:9. My eyes cannot see, my ears cannot hear, and my mind cannot imagine what God is going to do with my darkness, but God can and will do so much more in my life, as He starts to bring glimmers of light into my darkness.

I have chosen to believe not only that He can, but that He will bring life from death itself. After all, that is His specialty! Will you join me?

 

Are you looking for help with your grief from a Christian perspective? We would like to send you chapter nine, A Spiritual Fireside Chat, from Laura’s book When Tragedy Strikes: Rebuilding Your Life With Hope and Healing after the Death of Your Child. (This will also allow you to join over 1,000 other parents who are receiving a Weekly Word of Hope, which you can unsubscribe from at any time.)

 

Expressions of Hope is written by author, speaker and singer Laura Diehl. She and her husband, Dave, are the founders of Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope). Dave and Laura travel full time in their Hope Mobile (a 38-foot motor home) to be more easily available for speaking and ministry requests, including being invited to hold one-day GPS Hope & Healing conferences.

 

If you would like more information about Laura as a speaker for your next event or want more information on hosting a GPS Hope & Healing conference, click here.

 

  • Check out the Grieving Parents Sharing Hope weekly podcast
  • If you are a bereaved parent, we encourage you to connect with us on Facebook.
  • If you are not a bereaved parent but want to support those who are, or want to follow us as we give hope to these precious parents, please connect with us at Friends of GPS Hope on Facebook.
  • Subscribe to Laura’s YouTube channel. 

Filed Under: Expressions of Hope Tagged With: 1 Corinthians 2:9 meaning, Bible verses after loss, child loss, Christian grief, Christian motherhood loss, death and eternal life, Ephesians 3:20 grief, finding hope after death, grief and faith, grief testimony, Jesus and suffering, losing a daughter, resurrection hope, trauma and hope, trusting God in grief

September 1, 2020 by Laura Diehl Leave a Comment

72: Losing an Only Child (with Sara Nelson)

It is devastating enough to have one of our children die, but to have your only child leave this earth gives a parent even more difficulties to have to fight against in working through the suffocating darkness.

Sara Nelson lost her only child, Jeanette, and feels called to help others through their grief, no matter the loss, but has a special place in her heart for those who, like herself, have lost their only child.

Sara Faith Nelson taught elementary and middle school grades for 15 years. Now she enjoys pursuing her love of writing. The primary focus of her writing has always leaned toward themes of hope, faith, and trust in the goodness of God. Since the death of her daughter and only child, she writes about her grief journey and surviving a devastating loss. She continues to write about trusting in God’s goodness and grace while grappling with the hard questions.

Sara and her husband, Dennis, live in Arizona.

(Note: The views and opinions of our guests outside of this podcast may not be in agreement with GPS Hope.) 
Links Mentioned in this episode:

Connect with Sara Nelson

Website: Footsteps of Hope

Email: writingsmiles2@gmail.com

Author  Facebook page

Find Footsteps of Hope on Amazon

 

Information to join GPS Hope on a cruise

Please remember to give this podcast a rating and review to help other parents who are looking for something that will encourage them.

Click here to become a monthly partner, giving hope to other parents, or to give a special gift to keep this podcast going, along with providing  other needed resources to bereaved parents.

(GPS Hope is a 501c3 nonprofit and runs on the financial support of those who believe in passing along the hope they have received to others.)

 

Birthdays:

Kevin Stoneburner was born on September 1 and is forever 27.

Raelyn Huffman was born on September 2 and is forever 22.

Toni was born on September 4 and is forever 24.

David Hector Toledo was born on September 5 and is forever 36.

Francesca Anne C. Agravante was born on September 6 and is forever 8.

Brady Keith Herbert was born on September 7 and is forever 30.

 

If you would like your child mentioned on the podcast the week of his or her birthday, click here to fill out the short form with the needed information.

The special song written for our children’s birthdays I Remember Well can be heard here.

 

Remember to Hold On Pain Eases; there is HOPE!

www.gpshope.org

 

To have Laura come and minister at your event, contact us at office@gpshope.org.

Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope) is here to walk with parents through the darkness of child-loss, guiding them to a place of hope, light and purpose.

It is a safe place for anyone who has lost a child from this earth. There is no shame or judgment in where you are in this journey, including if you are struggling in your relationship with God or your faith has been completely shattered.

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