All Episodes

We want answers and we want them now! We want (or feel like we need) God to explain Himself to us, telling us why our child left this earth before we did. We question how God can call Himself a loving Father or can possibly tell us that He is a good God. We don’t understand, and it is normal and okay to bring our questions and emotions to God, no matter how dark they are. If God explained to us wh...

Most of us are familiar with Paul’s words in Philippians 1:21, “To live is Christ and to die is gain.” As Laura began to study this out, she discovered a much deeper meaning to these words than most of us realize, which is very encouraging to us as pareavors. Laura also shares how that takes us deeper into the word redeemed , ending today’s episode by praying with the listeners about what wa...

There is another thing Laura has learned in ten years of grieving the death of her daughter that she did not talk about in last week’s episode, which is how much of an emotional roller coaster ride it is now, even ten years later. Yes, as the years go by, things smooth out and we may not find ourselves on the roller coaster ride as often, but it still happens. In this episode, Laura shares how fru...

The day this podcast episode airs (on October 12, 2021) will be the 10-year anniversary of Becca’s departure from this earth (Laura’s oldest daughter). Laura says the beginning of the last ten years held the most pain she have ever experienced. She had no idea that kind of suffocating darkness even existed. It scared her, not knowing how she was going to find her way out. When Becca first di...

Recently Laura received a response from one of the Weekly Word of Hope emails. The pareavor was upset with how Laura’s email said, “Neither life nor death is in our hands. God is the one who gives life within the womb. And God chooses when each person takes their last heartbeat.” Part of what this mom shared said, “That is scary. For that implies God organized this death – which sometimes is...

Recently Laura received a response from one of the Weekly Word of Hope emails. The pareavor was upset with how Laura’s email said, “Neither life nor death is in our hands. God is the one who gives life within the womb. And God chooses when each person takes their last heartbeat.” Part of what this mom shared said, “That is scary. For that implies God organized this death – which sometimes is...

Today Laura will talk about a simple way to help pareavors remind themselves of some of the most important things they need to remember on this grief journey, using the word grief as an acronym. Listen in, as Laura talks about each one in detail. G- Give yourself a lot of grace. R – Release yourself from guilt. I – Ignore those who are trying to fix you. E – Engage with other pareavors. F- Find wa...

When our child dies, all our goals that had to do with that child dies with them, which seems to carry over into every part of our lives. We lose hope that life is even worth living without the plans we had for, and with, our child. When we don’t have any hope, we don’t see a future, and it puts us in a vicious cycle which is hard to get out of. The enemy wants to keep us in that place of hopeless...

Most of us have what can be called domino effects after the death of our child. Just like when the first domino in a line of dominos falls and causes others to fall, the death of our child can cause unexpected and painful chain reactions. In this episode, Laura shares one of those personal chain reactions, and prays over other parents who are facing the painful situations of a domino effect after...

This week Laura is doing something a bit different. Her new CD was just released, and you will be hearing her share the story behind each song. (One of the songs was written by her daughter, Becca, who died at age 29.) The songs are: I Remember Well Still Waiting You Are Together Forever I Keep Walking Jesus Never Fails Before the Throne God created music to be a pathway to the soul. We need to be...

As parents who have experienced child loss, we carry a heavy load of grief. In this episode, Laura shares how she discovered five helpful parallels of climbing mountain trails, to our grief journey. Links Mentioned in th is episode: Listen to sample songs of new CD Together Forever Thirty Ways to Bring Yourself Comfort and Take Care of Yourself   Click here  to become a monthly partner, givin...

Many of us struggle with our view or belief about God after the death of our child. We feel like He has abandoned us. But it is much more helpful when we see God as the rescuer in our story, rather than the cause of our pain by something he did or didn’t do. In this episode, Laura takes a deeper look at Philippians 1:21 when Paul says, “to live is Christ and to die is gain.” It seems like a...

As a parent who has had a child die, it is very common to spend a lot of time thinking about the good things our children are missing out on because they are no longer here. We wish we could trade places with our kids because of those things. But how often do we think about the fact that they are also missing out on sickness, disease and corruption? They will also never have to go through grieving...

There are two kinds of guilt. One is when we know we have done something wrong and need to do our part to make it right. The second kind is when something happens, and we blame ourselves after the event happened with information we have now that we didn’t have at the time. Guilt gives us a heavy burden to carry and keeps us stuck in our grief. Feeling guilty about something that happened is not go...

A parent who is in deep grief after the death of their child is in a very vulnerable place for the enemy’s attacks. Jesus knew what it was like to have a wilderness experience and have the devil come at him during a time of intense weakness. In this episode, Laura continues looking at Jesus’ wilderness experience as he faces several temptations directly from Satan himself, and how what Jesus went...

When our child dies, many of us feel like we have been led into a dark pit and abandoned by God. We don’t understand why God did not stop the death of our child, especially when we were doing everything right on our end to be a “good” Christian. In Matthew 4, we read how right after God spoke with an audible voice from heaven how pleased He was with His Son, Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into a...

The message I kept hearing from many different places for the first two years after my daughter leaving this earth was: Don’t do , just be . I believe it is a message we all need at some point when working our way through the darkness and back into the light. The death of our child is a trauma, and we have some major healing that needs to occur in every part of us. We need lots of rest physically,...

Our thoughts about spending time with God can be all over the place after the death of our child, and it may be the last thing we want to do if we are angry with him. Some of us used to feel close to Him before our loss, and now He feels very distant, as if He either cannot hear us or doesn’t care. Just like there is no right or wrong way to grieve after the death of our child, there is no right o...

Last week we talked about how to answer the question, “How many children do you have?” This week we will discuss the question, “How are you?” This is an area we are good at putting on a mask with those who have not lost a child, but we will take it off very quickly when around those who have. In this episode, I share some thoughts from fellow pareavors about this question, including how several of...

As a bereaved parent, getting asked what used to be a normal, simple question can cause confusion, guilt, anger or even bring us to tears. One of those questions is, “How many children do you have?” In this episode, I share a recently received email on this topic along with my thoughts and experiences with this very common question that we no longer want to be asked, but find ourselves needing to...

One of the struggles I hear from pareavors is the question: Why bother praying if God is just going to do whatever He wants to do and did not keep my child from dying? This is something that bothered me as well for quite some time. In this podcast episode I talk about this area of prayer in our lives, along with sharing something the Holy Spirit showed me about why it is still important to pray. &...

Did you know there is literally a medical condition that in lay terms is called “broken heart syndrome”? In this episode, I share a bit about that, along with how most of us moms just want to be done here, as well as how we can make a shift in wanting to stay for a while longer.   Links Mentioned in th is episode: Laura’s Book: Come Grieve Through Our Eyes Check out The Grief Cruise for...

Last week was the first part of a discussion with my friend Joy Ware Miller. If you didn’t hear it, you may want to listen to that one first and then come back. It is called From Surviving to Thriving and has a lot of encouragement. Both weeks are from an interview back in 2017 from an online event, but what Joy shared is so good, I felt like it needed to get back out there for more pareavors to h...

Joy Ware Miller lost her healthy and active thirteen-year-old son as he collapsed from an unknown heart condition at the local YMCA one afternoon in March of 2005. Joy has become one of my treasured friends who brings encouragement, as she has been on this journey several years longer than I have. In this episode, Joy shares: How she kept pushing herself toward God, even when she struggled with be...

We often equate love with happiness, which make sense. But love also has a side to it that doesn’t give a person whatever they want, just so they won’t have to suffer. This is really difficult to comprehend or accept, when our child dies, especially if there was suffering involved. If God loved us, why doesn’t He step in and stop the suffering and answer our prayers of protection over our children...