All Episodes

This is the last episode in our series of Grief and Music after Child Loss. What you will be hearing is part of a conversation I had with Hannah Linton and her mom, Kathi Wilson that was originally recorded as a video in 2017 for our Hope & Healing Virtual Summit (online conference). Kathi is a singer/songwriter, and one of her CD’s I played many times in my little prayer room as it ministered...

We are continuing with our series on Grief and Music by talking to Angelique Marketon. Angelique has been a songwriter and worship leader for many years.  Her ministry through music was starting to grow to a national level, as area churches would ask her to come and lead worship for their events, and her recordings were starting to get noticed. Then her son and only child, Isaiah, died at the scen...

We are in a series of Grief and Music. This week, our guest, Yolanda Blade-Rory, shares with us her experience with music and worship after the unexpected death of her seven-year-old young son, Sasha, who died of an unknown heart condition. The episode ends with listening to one of the songs Yolanda wrote in her place of fighting the suffocating grief.   Yolanda Rory is a licensed and certifi...

This is the first episode in a series about Grief and Music. Music affects our souls. God created it that way. Music can be a powerful tool as we fight our way out of the darkness, trying to find hope, light, meaning and purpose again after the death of our child. In this episode, I will share my personal experiences with music, as well as giving you plenty of reasons to have music in your life ri...

This is a topic I don’t hear talked about much, but it affects so many of us.  Who would have ever thought we would be faced with the decision of donating our child’s organs? There are so many mixed emotions about this, whether you did, or whether you didn’t. The world of organ donation is a family within a family. We are all family in the world of being a parent bereaved of our child (a pareavor)...

In our Western Culture, we usually choose names for our newborn babies because we like the sound of it, or we name them after a famous person, or even after an object or a place because we want to give our child a unique name. No matter how we came up with our child’s name, names have meaning, and our name can affect who we become as a person, and how we live our life. This isn’t just something fr...

This is the third and last episode in our series for the newly bereaved. Today we will be hearing from Pam Vredevelt, who has faced both a pregnancy loss, and the death of her 16-year-old son. Not only can Pam share from the personal experience of child loss, she can add the depth of being a licensed professional counselor for over 25 years. As a bereaved parent, we hear a lot about giving ourselv...

When my daughter, Becca, died, I thought I was getting early Alzheimer’s because of how forgetful I was, how scrambled my mind felt, and how quickly important information could leave my brain. I had no idea for the first couple of years that it was “normal” for a parent after the death of their child, and it was a relief to find that out. What else is “normal” for a newly bereaved parent? First, i...

There is no training for being a bereaved parent. It is a very dark place, and we can feel utterly alone, as if no one understands. But those of us who have lost a child do understand, and we want to walk with you, especially through the darkest part of your grief. In this episode there will be things shared that are important for you to know. Not in the way of a “to do” list, but more of a “give...

When my daughter died, I had already been leaning on a different yearly scripture for over twelve years. Each year I wrote down what that verse was, in the back of a specific Bible. In this podcast episode, I thought it would be interesting and valuable to go back and look at the verses God put in my life for the past ten years, starting with the year Becca was so ill (2010), then the year she die...

Every time a new year shows up, it brings lots of emotions for many of us bereaved parents, especially if this is the first time the calendar has turned to a new year since your child died. It can seem horrible because it feels like we are leaving our child behind as we go into a new year. In this episode, you will hear from a few “experienced” pareavors who know what it’s like to face going into...

Christmas can be one of the worst weeks of the year for many of us with child loss. After my daughter, Becca, died, it made me realize that even though I did my best to make Christmas about the birth of Jesus, it really was more about things like baking traditional cookies, giving my kids presents and making the season fun for them. The death of our child causes us to rethink everything we thought...

Child loss take us to such a dark place that we can easily believe it’s impossible to ever have joy in our lives again. But if Christ is in us, so is joy, because that is one of the fruits of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Our lives will never be the same. We will never be the same, but He is always the same. God is right here with us, ready to wash over us with His love, to put the pieces of our sha...

Christmas time can be brutal the first few years for those of us who have lost a child. It is so easy to lose what little peace we started to find. This week we will talk about peace, and the Prince of Peace who came as a baby to die so that we can have peace in the midst of our worst nightmare.   Links Mentioned in th is episode: Join GPS Hope on a cruise for those who have faced a deep loss...

You may not agree with the title of this podcast episode, but it really is true. You can have hope in your life again after child loss. And the Christmas season, as difficult as it can be, is a great time to have that hope infused into your heart and soul. Each week during the advent season, I do a live candle lighting on Facebook (with the advent wreath we used in our home as our children grew up...

This is the final episode in a 3-part series called Rebuilding Your Life After Child Loss. First, we hear from two bereaved parents (Sara Nelson and Melanie Delorme) about their journey coming out of the darkness and back to a place of living a life of meaning and purpose again. Then I share how I have seen and experienced how God lovingly wants to help each of us to move in that same direction. &...

When our child dies, we find ourselves in a place of darkness we didn’t even know existed. There are often many struggles within that place of darkness. Today we will touch on three of these: Prayer Those around us who don’t understand and aren’t supporting us How our thoughts can keep us in our place of darkness I want to encourage you that it won’t always be this dark. Those of us who are on thi...

In this podcast episode, I talk about the mental breakdown that we struggle with after the death of our child. If you are like me, the mental break downs are so very frustrating; the confusion, the fogginess, not being able to concentrate, and major forgetfulness (as in forgetting how to do a simple task you have done most of your life)! It really scared me as I started wondering if I was having a...

When our child dies, we start out in such a place of darkness and eventually have moments we see light or hope, and then fall back into that darkness. Along with that, many of us have a hard time seeing or finding God in all of the pain and confusion. No one has all the answers to our questions of “Why?”. So instead of being stuck there, it can be helpful to change some of our perspectives, which...

At GPS Hope, we get emails from those of you who are struggling in your marriage after the death of your child, or who have questions about how your spouse is grieving. So, I decided it was time to do a podcast episode on this topic. Of course, this means I got to bring in my other half to talk about this subject, as my husband Dave joins me to share his side of things. In our workshops, Dave and...

So often I hear the frustration of bereaved parents who are hurt and angry because people around them think they should be doing better than they are, even as early as 3 or 4 months, on up to the first few years. This episode addresses this difficult issue, with some ideas of things that can help you deal with these kinds of ignorant remarks. Links Mentioned in th is episode: To get a list of my t...

This week is a continuation of last week’s episode as I talked with Erica Mitchell. Erica had a pregnancy loss and had to deliver her stillborn son, which was pretty traumatic. Last week we ended in the middle of Erica’s story of God allowing her to see her son, Sheldon, in heaven. She was so angry that He would dare to show her that, after taking her son from her. This episode starts with God’s r...

This is the beginning of a chat I had in the Hope Mobile with a Wisconsin friend, Erica Mitchell. Today’s talk is quite a bit of the details (and I do mean details – as in possible trigger warning, which are important to her story) of Erica’s story of the traumatic pregnancy loss of her son, Sheldon, including her questioning why God would make promises to her that He wasn’t keeping. Erica does a...

When our child dies, most of us have an immediate support system. But as the weeks and months go by, those people usually go back to their lives and we are left still shattered. We feel like we are going crazy. People around us say that we should be “over this” by now and make us either feel angry at them for suggesting such a thing, or feel guilty for still being such a mess, easily confused, for...

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 th...