Grieving Parents Sharing Hope

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 […]

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 this episode: Listen to sample songs of new CD Together Forever Thirty Ways to Bring Yourself Comfort and Take […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Did you know that the first Sunday of each May is International Bereaved Mother’s Day? That’s what we will be talking about in this episode, along with touching on the week that follows which most of us dread… Mother’s Day. Just a warning, I am very real and honest about my thoughts and feelings about […]

When our child dies, we want to die ourselves so we can go be with them. It may not make sense to others, or even ourselves, especially when we know in our heads that we have reasons (people) to live for. It is important for you to know that this is “normal” for someone who […]

The day this episode is released, my daughter, Becca, would be 39 years old. Instead, she is forever 29. Three of Becca’s siblings are now older than their big sister, with one more sibling yet to hit that marker. The birthdays of our children are painful and bittersweet. We are so thankful for the day […]

This episode is a continuation of last week’s topic. We are all very aware that in this life, we don’t always get what we planned. I’m pretty sure as a parent, it wasn’t your plan to be listening to a podcast for grieving parents, and it certainly wasn’t in my plan to host one, or […]

We just got done having our GPS Hope and Healing retreat in Texas and it was wonderful! (See the link below if you want to find out more about our retreats.) Today and next week’s episodes are one of the sessions from this past retreat. None of us ever planned to be listening to a […]

When our child dies, we are surrounded by family and friends who hurt with us, cry with us and pray with us. Some of them will sit with us, call to see if there is anything we need, and we often get a couple weeks’ worth of meals brought to our house. Then 3 months, […]

This is the 100th episode of the Grieving Parents Sharing Hope Podcast, which means it has been going faithfully for almost two years already! In trying to decide what to do for this special episode, I realized that many of our listeners might not know things like how the ministry of GPS Hope got started, […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]