Laura Diehl, Author at GPS Hope Page

June 28, 2020 by Laura Diehl 4 Comments

Is the Enemy’s Objective Working on You?

It’s a good thing that I enjoy hearing from bereaved parents and writing back to them, because I get many emails every week.

Many of those I hear from share a similar struggle. It is the struggle of doubting God’s goodness, asking questions along the line of:

Does God really even exist?
Is there really a heaven?
How could He be real if He is so cruel by allowing so many terrible things to happen in this world?

I thought I would share my answer to one of those emails here, because it is a struggle I often hear about. I will call her Madeline. She was beginning to doubt if God is even real, or if there is an afterlife when we leave this earth.

Madeline,

When our child dies, we are such a vulnerable target for the enemy. We are confused, angry, and all the other emotions which are very familiar to you now. You have probably heard me say that I had no idea that so much darkness and pain even existed or was possible.

You are right, God would be very cruel if He allowed all of these horrible things to happen to some of us and is selective on who He helps and who He does not. God is in the business of redeeming and restoring what the enemy corrupts and damages. So maybe, we aren’t looking at it through the right eyes. We are trying to humanize God, which just isn’t possible.

One of the enemy’s top objectives is to make us think all of the horrible things that happen to us here on earth is God’s fault, and that He really isn’t who He says He is. The enemy is out to do that by planting doubts in our mind, just like he did with Eve at the beginning of time. His specialty is lying, deceiving, killing, destroying, stealing from us, and then getting us to blame God instead of him.

God’s specialty is restoring, redeeming, peace, loving us through our doubts, anger, bitterness and blaming Him. Here is something I wrote in my book When Tragedy Strikes.

I can choose to believe there is no God or He would have saved my child. I can choose to believe that if there is a God, He isn’t good and He isn’t fair or He would have saved my child. Both of those options leave me feeling angry and empty. I have chosen the third option. There is a God, His thoughts and ways are so much higher than mine, He loves me with a perfect love, and even though I don’t understand why He has allowed this to happen, I still trust Him with my life both here on earth and for eternity. This option has brought me to a place of peace, rest, hope, and life again—even within the pain.

Death is a part of life. We will all die at some point. And as painful as it is, some of us will have children who leave this earth ahead of us. The question is how are we going to choose to live the rest of our lives when they are gone and there is nothing we can do to bring them back?

During grief, people either move toward God or away from Him. But when we move away from Him, we are moving away from the One who can help us the most. God wants to walk with us through this valley of death. He wants to give us comfort. He wants to give us strength. He wants to give us hope. These are all things we desperately need. But if we choose to move away from Him, we will continue to desperately need these things. This is a time to get as close to God as you possibly can.

As I was writing the last paragraph, I got a picture of a distraught child crying uncontrollably. In the picture, I see a father bending down to pick up that child. The child is so upset he is kicking and screaming and fighting the father, who is trying to pick him up. Eventually the child runs out of strength and relaxes in the embrace of his loving father. And now that child can receive the comfort, strength, and hope he wants and needs. It is the same with us. Don’t fight the One who can give you the very things you need. Surrender, let Him embrace you and carry you in His strong arms of love.

I pray you get to the point where you can choose to believe God is bigger than death, that He made a way for you to be with your child again, and that our life here for all of us is only temporary. As a recent guest on a GPS Hope YouTube video, Wayne Jacobson shared, it’s like we are in the lobby, and the real show is on the other side of the door, behind the curtain.

You are on your own journey, and I am so honored and blessed to be walking some of it with you. For me, I would go crazy if I believed Becca’s life was over, she is nothing but dust now and I will never ever see her again; never be able to hug her or hear her laugh. I get so much more peace from believing that God sees the big picture, that He knew the exact second Becca’s heart would stop and her last breath would be taken, and He knows that about me as well, and He put a plan in place before that ever happened so that we could be together again. He was there to meet Becca when she crossed over, and He and Becca will be there to meet me when I cross over.

If you are struggling with some of these same things, I pray this was helpful to you. Our life is a journey, and we have been placed on a road we never wanted to be on. But you are not on this road alone. There are thousands who are ahead of you, and many who want to walk with you.

Those of us at GPS Hope are here to walk with you. To hear more emails answered about struggles grieving parents are having, you can head over to our GPS Hope YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe and click the bell icon to get notifications when a new video comes out.

You can also join over a thousand other parents who are receiving a Weekly Word of Hope delivered to them by email. Just let us know below where you would like it to be sent.

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.

June 23, 2020 by Laura Diehl Leave a Comment

62: You Are Loved

This is the second episode in the Finding Joy Again series.

As I push for myself to learn how to have joy back in my life again, one thing I am sure of is that we can’t have joy without a revelation of God’s love for us. We must learn how to live loved by God, which is a struggle for many parents, after the death of their child.

We want to pull God down to our level of humanity, to try and make sense of Him, but that just doesn’t work. Because He is so much bigger than what we can comprehend, there are going to be answers we are not able to receive this side of eternity.

Feelings don’t equal truth and they fail, but God’s love never fails. We have to become vulnerable to see who He truly is and allow Him to love on us in this dark painful place, if we want joy in our lives again while waiting to be reunited with our children.

Links Mentioned in this episode:

Please remember to take a few seconds to give the podcast a rating and review.

It is easiest to give a rating/review directly from the app on your phone on the platform you are using to listen to the podcast. (Just go to the main page of the Grieving Parents Sharing Hope podcast and scroll down to the ratings and reviews.)

There are a couple of extra steps to give a review on Apple/iTunes from your computer. If you want to help others find us this way, here are the steps. Click here, which will take you to the podcast.

• Under the podcast title, click on the box that says “Listen on Apple Podcasts” (and open iTunes when it asks if that is what you want to do).
• Once in iTunes, under the title Grieving Parents Sharing Hope, click on “Ratings and Reviews”.

Here is where you can click on the star of the value you want to give the podcast (clicking on the 5th star is the highest, the first star is the lowest). Then just click on “Write a Review” under Customer Reviews to share what you like about the podcast/why you listen to it.

THANK YOU!

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:

Lukas Christofferson was born on June 28 and is forever 19.

Dominic Cardenas was born on June 28 and is forever 24.

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.

June 16, 2020 by Laura Diehl Leave a Comment

61: Planting the Seed of Joy

In this new series, Finding Joy Again, we are going to be digging deep into the topic of joy.

• What is it?
• Is it even possible to have joy in my life again?
• If so, how do I get there?
• How can I hold on to it and not keep losing it?

Before we can have joy again, there is a seed that needs to be planted; the seed of hope.

Most of us are familiar with Nehemiah 8:10, that the joy of the Lord is our strength, but chances are pretty good this verse hasn’t been explained to you in a way that takes all the pressure off of you and turns it into a seed of hope that can be planted in your life.

Listen to this episode as host, Laura Diehl, shares what God has been teaching her about planting the seed of hope that can be nourished to eventually grow into the fruit of joy. Not a euphoric happiness, but a strength that can carry us through the rest of our time here on earth while we wait to be reunited with our children.

Links Mentioned in this episode:

Find out more about the book When Tragedy Strikes: Rebuilding Your Life with Hope and Healing After the Death of Your Child

To check out the When Tragedy Strikes Hope & Healing Course click here.

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:

Calvin Joseph Kendricks Jr. was born on June 17 and is forever 28.

Joe Luzzo was born on June 18 and is forever 17.

Tony Posatiere was born on June 18 and is forever 38.

Alyssa Tyner was born on June 19 and is forever 2 ½.

Kari-Lee Birrell was born on June 19 and is forever 25.

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.

June 9, 2020 by Laura Diehl Leave a Comment

60: Four Keys to Unlock the Door to the Prison of Grief

How we think about certain things can either keep us in our place of darkness or can help us find our way out. In this continuation from last week’s episode (“This Was NOT in My Plan!”) we look at four more keys that can help unlock the door to the prison cell of our suffocating grief.

The four keys are:
1. Come into right alignment
2. Rest in Him
3. Surrender
4. Change the “Why?” question

There are many more keys, but these are the ones discussed in this episode.

Remember, this is a process, a marathon. You may not be ready for all of these keys yet, but at least you will know that you can use them when you feel you need another breakthrough on this journey.

Links Mentioned in this episode:

To check out the When Tragedy Strikes Hope & Healing Course click here.

Please remember to give a rating and a review on the platform where you listen to this podcast.

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:

Beth Simmons Marsh was born on June 12 and is forever 58.

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.

June 7, 2020 by Laura Diehl Leave a Comment

Deep Grief Leaves Deep Scars

When we are deeply wounded, a scar is left behind. That happens both physically and emotionally.

When I was around three years old, my dad took my sister and me on a bike ride around the neighborhood at my grandma’s house. We had done it before. My sister was sitting behind him, and I was sitting in front of my dad as he was pedaling the bicycle. This one time, when he turned the wheel, I didn’t spread my legs far enough and got my ankle caught in the bike spokes. It took out a chunk of my ankle, and I ended up with a staph infection.

It took me out of commission for quite some time, and I didn’t get to play in the water that summer. I had to sit on the edge of the pool with my injured ankle wrapped in a plastic bread wrapper to make sure it stayed dry. We have a picture of me dangling my non-injured leg in the water while watching my sister and cousins splash around having fun.

I recovered, but I still have a scar on my ankle and always will.

At age forty-eight, my husband, Dave, ended up having quadruple bypass surgery. Recovery took a long time, and over ten years later he still has some effects from it and is on certain medications for the rest of his life. He also has a permanent scar, reminding us what he went through.

If you have been connected to GPS Hope for very long, you know that my daughter, Becca, had her leg amputated when she was only three years old because of bone cancer. (She died at age twenty-nine due to long-term heart damage from one of the chemo drugs given to her at that time.) Obviously, she had a scar on her stump from the amputation.

Becca’s missing leg can be a good illustration for to us, as bereaved parents. Having our child die is like having an amputation; a part of our very being has been cut off from us. The wound is severe, but it will eventually heal, but there will always be a scar, reminding us that a part of our very being is missing.

But the comparisons don’t stop at the scar of the injury.

Did having a staph infection in my ankle keep me from ever riding a bike or swimming again? No way! I loved riding a bike, especially as a kid (although I recently switched to enjoying riding my mini Segway) and I love to swim and be in the water, especially in warm places with beautiful beaches.

Did having quadruple bypass surgery keep Dave from permanently doing things like holding and playing with his grandchildren, or starting new adventures like selling our house and learning how to drive a 38-foot motor home that we now live in? Nope!

Did having an amputation keep Becca from running and playing with the other children? No, it definitely did not! It may have slowed her down and caused her to adapt to how she ran and how she played, but it didn’t stop her.

When these horrible things happen, including something as terrible as the death of our child, does it mean our life is over, and we will never be able to live a full life again? No, it doesn’t.

We need time to go through a “recovery” process (for lack of a better word) and need time to learn how to function with our child no longer here, but it doesn’t mean we will never be able to function again.

We will go through times when everyone around us is splashing and playing while we are unable to participate because of our wounds.
We will go through times when we can’t function and have to wait for more healing.
We will go through times when we have to adjust the way we do things.
We will forever bear the scar of our tragedies.
We will always have things that trigger reminders.

But we are not permanently injured to the point of being out of commission for the rest of our lives.

Our lives will never be the same. We will never be the same. But within that, we can make sure the tragedies in our lives are not wasted by leaving us incapacitated. And that includes the tragedy of the death of our child.

We can allow God’s love to wash over us, to heal us, and to take this change in us and use it against the enemy who brought death into this world.

And just think, all of our scars will disappear someday, both the physical ones and the emotional ones, when we join our children in that place where there is no more pain, no more sorrow, and all of our tears will be wiped away.

But until then, we need to remember…

Wounds heal so that we can continue living. Yes, our scar reminds us of what happened, of who was cut off from us, but it also reminds us that our life isn’t over. There is still more living to do, if not for yourself, then at least for those who love you and still need you in their lives, and for your child who is no longer here.

We can (and need to) learn to live with our scars in a way that honors our son or daughter, not in spite of our child’s death, but because of his or her life.

Are you looking for glimpses of hope in the suffocating darkness of grief after the death of your child? Join over 1,000 other parents who get a word of hope delivered directly to them every week. (You can easily unsubscribe when you no longer need the encouragement.)

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.