Laura Diehl, Author at GPS Hope Page

April 4, 2018 by Laura Diehl Leave a Comment

5 of My Favorite Faith-Inspiring Quotes

Scripture. There’s nothing as life-giving as God’s Word. Recently I heard about “The Hand” illustration to making Scripture an everyday part of one’s life.

If you are like me and haven’t heard of “The Hand,” the premise is that each of these 5 practices gives you a strong “grip” on the Word of God, as if each of these represent one of your fingers (and thumb, of course):

1. Hearing
2. Reading
3. Studying
4. Memorizing
5. Meditating

While I love to share Scripture the most, I’ve also been encouraged and inspired by several quotes I’ve read in books or heard in sermons throughout the years.

These don’t take the place of Scripture (obviously!) but these quotes have given me perspective, hope, and encouragement in my day-to-day life, and I hope they do the same for you wherever you are reading this from.

The little things are the big things. Unknown. (I have seen many variations of this quote.)

Faith and fear both demand you believe in something you cannot see. You choose! Bob Proctor

Rules without relationship leads to rebellion. Josh McDowell

I don’t know what tomorrow holds, but I know who holds tomorrow. Unknown. (Joyce Meyer has a variation of this.)

We want clarity before we take action. But clarity only comes because we take action. Kary Oberbrunner (Another one of his quotes I greatly appreciate is: Clarity attracts, confusion repels.)

If you’re looking for some other great reads, don’t forget to check out my previous article: 3 of My Favorite Books – Have You Read Any of These?

What are some of your favorite quotes? I’d love to hear them – share below!

March 25, 2018 by Laura Diehl 2 Comments

Four Ways to Help Bring Peace While in the Deep Pain of Grieving the Loss of Your Child

The pain of losing our child seems to always be with us. Even if I’m not emotionally feeling the pain at the moment, it is still there. It’s almost like a physical chronic pain. There are times you are so used to having the pain that you don’t even realize you’re feeling it.

During the first few years after our daughter Becca’s death, God gave me many reminders to rest in Him and His ways that didn’t make any sense. It was a hard thing to do, because I could not see any light in my darkness or understand why God was allowing so much intense pain.

He would share His reminders to just “be” and to rest in Him in so many different ways. He would remind me to take a breath and breathe in His love and peace.

He never sugarcoated anything but would acknowledge how difficult and steep my climb was, telling me to cling tightly to His hand, reminding me to look at Him whenever my circumstances overwhelmed me.

Here are four things that helped me be able to rest in God’s love for me, even in the midst of my intense suffocating darkness, that I would like to pass on to you.

1. Anytime you feel like you are sinking under the swirling waters, call out “Lord, save me!” just like Peter did in Matthew 14. Whenever I did that, somehow Jesus always reached through the storm and pulled me up out of the drowning sea of emotions, into His secure arms, where I would feel like He was holding me. He knew how weak and helpless I was, and He never tired of meeting me in my place of need.

2. Do whatever you need to do to be aware of His presence, which might include playing some worship music, or just sitting in silence in a place of nature where there is beauty and peace. Not only would He “hold” me, but He would encourage me to relax in the awareness of His presence. Some of my most precious times with the Lord were in my greatest times of weakness, just letting everything go and melting into His peace, love, and compassion.

3. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you some positive things that have happened because of the deep brokenness (no matter how small those things may be). When I was only eight months into this journey, I asked God to do this for me, and I came up with a list of eighteen things I saw Him working in me through the darkness, such as learning to become nonjudgmental (I didn’t have time or energy – that kind of thing just wasn’t important to me anymore), seeing the love and grace of God in a deep way, becoming free of what man thinks of me, enjoying being in His presence (just resting and letting Him love on me), learning it’s okay to be broken and to be a Christian and a leader, and so on.

4. Be determined to live from a place of surrender. This means we must learn to live from the spiritual part of our being—Christ in me and I in Him—and not out of our emotions or flesh. I always thought I did pretty good at that, but I have found a new level of living in it by tapping much more deeply into who God is in me. Here is something I wrote in my journal, eighteen months after Becca died.

4/21/13: This morning I just had to get to my prayer room, and there’s been such a sweetness of just wanting to be here with Him. I finally put my finger on it: it is the contentment of surrender! I almost feel guilty for not being agitated or in some sort of emotional pain, but there is such a peace and contentment—very unnatural, and yet it should be natural, and I pray it has become a natural part of my life!

I will readily admit though, that the pain is still pretty intense at times, and I can feel like I am going backwards as I lose that peace and the place of rest I am fighting to keep.

For instance, at one point, Becca’s husband dropped off four plastic tubs on our front porch that he no longer wanted. They all contained things of Becca’s that were special and important to her, along with some of her medical equipment and other not so good memory items.

It was really hard to go through those bins. But the thing that left me in a crying mess for the next few days was when I discovered her wedding dress smashed in the bottom of the last bin. It felt so cruel, so careless. My daughter’s life has been reduced to four plastic bins, I thought.

But instead of allowing myself to go in that direction, I told myself the truth. Her life was much bigger than these four bins. However, it was another door of finality I had to painfully work through, and once again make a conscious decision to rest in who God is, within the painful circumstance.

I have now learned that peace and pain can both reside in us at the same time. Whether I am consciously feeling the pain or not, an underlying peace seems to travel side-by-side with my pain. It is definitely the peace of God that goes beyond any understanding, and I am so thankful that He offers it to us and gives it freely.

I wish God would just speak a command and make it all better, instantly removing the pain and replacing it with constant peace and rest, but it doesn’t happen that way. Learning how to live in that place is a process for each one of us.

Learning to rest in God is a must if you want to get out of your place of darkness. And that means spending time alone with Him. You don’t even have to talk to Him, just “be” with Him, in your pain, your anger, or your darkness. And don’t feel guilty about taking as much time as you need to be intimate with the One who loves you like crazy and wants to get you out of the suffocating pit and onto the path of living again. Spend intimate time with Him. Lots of it.

Let Him show you the way out by resting in the fullness of Himself.

This article was taken from Laura Diehl’s book When Tragedy Strikes: Rebuilding Your Life With Hope and Healing After the Death of Your Child. Laura will be doing a live six-week deeper dive study into this book with anyone who wants to join her. Click the link below for more information or to register.

Yes! I am interested in doing a study with author Laura Diehl on her book When Tragedy Strikes.

Expressions of Hope is written by author and speaker Laura Diehl to bring hope, light and life to those struggling in darkness after a tragedy, especially bereaved parents. If you would like more information about Laura as an author or a speaker for your next event, click here.

GPS Hope exists to bring hope to parents who have suffered the death of a child, acknowledging their unique grief with support, connection and education for them and those around them.

March 13, 2018 by Laura Diehl 2 Comments

Trusting God After the Death of Your Child

Every step on our life journey is a step of trust. We either trust in others, in ourselves, or in God.

Trusting completely in others, or only in ourselves, will eventually fail. But when something horrible happens in our lives (such as the death of our child) we often tell ourselves we can’t trust God unless we know the “why.”

I often use my own experience as a parent to help me understand my heavenly Father. Are there times I need my children to trust me without giving them an explanation? Of course. Are there lots of reasons I might not tell them why? Yes. And I know there are times my children have asked why (or why not), not because they really want to know, but because they want to be able to argue against my reason, whatever that reason is.

We can have the same attitude with God. Even if He told us why He allowed this tragedy in our lives, it wouldn’t be a good enough reason in our intense pain and darkness, and we would just want to argue with Him on how wrong He was to do this to us.

Understanding will not bring us peace. That is why we are told to trust in God and not in our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5). For some reason we often think if we can figure things out we can be in control. But the relief felt doesn’t last very long because soon there is something else we are trying to make sense of.

During deep 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.

The picture I get is one of a distraught child crying uncontrollably as a father bends down to pick up that child. The child is so upset that he is kicking and screaming and fighting his father. 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. We often fight the One who can give us the very things we need. Instead, we need to quit fighting Him, receive His embrace, and allow Him to carry each of us in His strong arms of love.

We choose what we want to believe.

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 a 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.

It is possible to choose to trust His love for you, even when you can’t see it or feel it. Not only is it possible, but it is a necessary step to get through the suffocating darkness into a place of light.

I would like to share something God spoke to my heart, that is just as true for you as it is for me.

I have a love for you that is so special and so deep and so unique that I can’t love anyone else with it. It is a love that is only for you! No one else can receive it because it is yours and yours only!

I suggest you read it again, slowly this time, hearing God speak this truth directly to you. Read it several times if you need to. Read it out loud. Keep reading it, until the truth of it breaks through and you know in your heart that because of His incredible, extravagant love for you, you can trust Him.

As a parent who has lost a child, I have gone through the trauma, grief, and darkness that come with it. I am also someone who was able to plant a seed of hope in my life that is now growing into a tree of life. It is a different tree with different fruit from before my daughter, Becca, died, but it is alive and sprouting and starting to bear some fruit.

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? Am I going to live in a way that reminds everyone my child died, or that my child lived?

I have chosen to trust God and continue to trust God, knowing He could have healed Becca but did not, allowing her to go to her eternal home ahead of me. He has a purpose and a plan that I cannot see or know about, because He is God and I am not.

I hope and pray that you will do the same.

This article was taken from Laura Diehl’s book When Tragedy Strikes: Rebuilding Your Life With Hope and Healing After the Death of Your Child. Laura will be doing a live six-week deeper dive study into this book with anyone who wants to join her. Click the link below for more information or to register.

**Yes! I am interested in doing a study with author Laura Diehl on her book When Tragedy Strikes.**

GPS Hope exists to bring hope to parents who have suffered the death of a child, acknowledging their unique grief with support, connection and education for them and those around them.

March 2, 2018 by Laura Diehl 2 Comments

3 of My Favorite Books – Have You Read Any of These?

Several years ago, I thought I was pretty secure in my identity in God, but after our daughter, Becca, died, I discovered how little I knew about it, much less how to live securely from that place.

As Dave and I continue as missionaries in the dark field of grieving parents, I am very thankful God has been shedding so much light, making me more and more solid in my identity of being fully loved by Him than ever before.

One thing that God used to open my eyes to receive this needed revelation I thought I already had, is a good book. Actually, there were several!

If you’re in a season of feeling a little spiritually disoriented, looking to deepen your walk, or just want a good read, consider checking these out. There are tons of great titles out there, but these were really meaningful to me.

Book 1: He Loves Me! Learning to Live in the Father’s Affection

So many Christians believe God’s love is fickle: when they sin, He turns away in disgust and anger. They vacillate between “He loves me” and “He loves me not” because of their behavior. That reasoning, writes Wayne Jacobsen, is as flawed as pulling petals from a daisy. Rather God’s love is sturdy, enduring, and undisturbed by people’s failings because God loves humankind not for what they do–but who they are. They are God’s beloved creation.

The book opened my eyes to how I was still trying to earn God’s love when I didn’t realize that is what I was doing. He really does love me, unconditionally, just the way I am, and I am still learning how to live in a way that sets me free, knowing how fully I am loved.

One of my favorite quotes from this book is, “One can be a good Christian by embracing its doctrines, its rituals, and its ethics without ever knowing him. Jesus did not come to start a new religion, he came to break the power of them all by inviting us to follow him and live in the reality of his love for us. Just remember, life in Christ has more to do with following a person than it does following the rules.”

If you’d like to get it on Amazon, here’s the link.

Book 2: Conquering the Game of Control: Nurturing the Nature of God

All humans, by nature, are doomed to play an unwinnable game which looks remarkably like the harmless game of Rock/Paper/Scissors, but is, in reality, played out with the weapons of domination, manipulation, and intimidation.
Like the game of Rock/Paper/Scissors, there are no real winners; only victims who feel crushed, cut, or covered by the process—or ominously empowered by it. What is the solution? To quit playing the game altogether! God does not “play the game”. Through Him, humans can be transformed until the game of control gives way to a life of mutual submission—the dance of relationship rather than the dissonance of control.

This book has affected me in a way that few other books have. It opened my eyes to so many things that I needed to see about myself and relationships, and gave me the desire to release things I had been holding on to that were interfering in living out my true identity in Him.

One of my favorite quotes from this book was, “The great good news is that, in Jesus, we can expect a change that is so deep, so transforming, that we actually interact with people in a whole new way, with love and humility and truth – in authority, rather than the old ways of domination, intimidation, and manipulation – in control.”

If you’d like to get it on Amazon, here’s the link.

Book 3: Your Secret Name: Discovering Who God Created You to Be

Using the story of the biblical patriarch Jacob as a backdrop, author Kary Oberbrunner calls us to stop accepting the world’s labels and start wrestling with God to discover our true identity. Jacob spent years living out the meaning of his earthly name: “deceiver.” Caught up in pretending to be someone he wasn’t, he was unaware that God would build a nation through him, unaware that Jesus would be one of his descendants, unaware of the lands he would inherit. Then he heard God speak his true name and the future God had for him unfolded. In Your Secret Name, we are reminded that we’ll be unable to discern what God wants to build through us until we discover how God has seen us all along. Readers will find the courage to abandon what they know in order to become who they were born to be.

One of my favorite quotes from this book was, “Interesting how Jacob asked for a blessing and the angel responded by asking him his name. Perhaps within that exchange, we stumble upon a secret. Seems like many of us crave a blessing – we want God to bless us, our families, our jobs and our finances. Instead, God knows our only shot at a true blessing comes by uncovering our true identity.”

If you’d like to get it on Amazon, here’s the link.

What are some of your favorites? I’d love to hear them — especially if you’re in a season of learning who you are in Him and how deeply loved you are. Leave a comment below!

February 25, 2018 by Laura Diehl Leave a Comment

Your Lost Identity When Your Child Dies

Our identity is so important, and when we lose our child, a huge part of our identity has been stripped from us, even if we have other children still here (but especially if we do not).

In the Bible, in the book of Exodus, chapter three, God shares with Moses that He has seen the pain and misery of His people. He has heard them crying. He is concerned about their suffering. And He has a plan to help them out of their pain, to move them forward into the fullness of who He promised they would be, if they would allow it.

When we are in the darkness of our crushing pain, most of us don’t even think it is possible to move out of the darkness into a place of light, much less have meaning and purpose in our lives ever again. I have heard so many times, “Well, maybe you have found peace and hope and have a life worth living, and I am glad for you, but I just don’t see that happening for me.” Guess what? I THOUGHT THE SAME THING!

After my daughter, Becca, died, I was in such a pit of suffocating darkness, but had no idea how to get out and didn’t think I ever could. And I was absolutely right! I couldn’t.

But I was also determined to hang on to God with anything and everything I possibly could, no matter what. And quite often, that was not holding on to Him at all, but letting Him hold on to me as I just cried and sobbed. And I am talking not just weeks, but months and on into the second and third year after her death.

The added horror of thinking that I was going to live out the rest of my life here on earth just waiting to die, while stuck in the shell of my earthly body, was terrifying to me. Especially when my head knew I still had things to live for, but my heart just wouldn’t allow me to believe it and want to live.

So, I started making myself think about what I knew about my God before the unthinkable happened.

• I AM with you and will NEVER leave you or forsake you
• I AM able – NOTHING is impossible for Him
• I AM a promise keeper (which we often misunderstand or misconstrue)
• I AM love itself
• I AM your comforter
• I AM light in the darkness
• I AM the Prince of Peace
• I AM life, and resurrection power is my specialty
• I AM the one who counts all of your tears and keeps them in a bottle
• I AM the lover of your soul
• I AM all-knowing and all-powerful
• I AM the giver of life, of hope, of rest
• I AM the One who makes a way when there is no way
• I AM the Alpha and O mega, the beginning and end of everything (He will always have the final word!)
• I AM the provider of eternal life
• I AM your rock, your anchor, and the tower you can run to for security
• I AM everything you need

What I have come to know is that because of the identity of the great I AM, my identity, and therefore my life, is not over here on this earth, and I am okay with that. And even more importantly, my identity is tied to Him more than anything or anyone else, which is still slowly bringing a new measure of freedom in my life that I have never had before.

God was not blindsided by Becca’s death. He didn’t reach His limits when she left this earth, and was suddenly unable to bring light into darkness, no matter how deep and black that darkness is.

In other words, He did not stop being I AM, and all that it means, because I stopped being the me I knew as Becca’s mom. He is the exact same God I loved and trusted before He allowed Becca to go ahead of me to our eternal home. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He was, and is, and is to come. He isn’t the one whose identity changed. His identity is sure and secure, proven throughout thousands of years.

That meant I had to find out who He really is, instead of who I thought He was. And you probably need to as well. And the only way I know for us to become unscrambled in this area of our lost identity, and become all that God created and intended for us to be, is to seek to understand God’s identity as the I AM, within our deep pain and grief.

Go ahead, be mad at Him. It’s okay. That is part of how we find out who He really is. Because no matter how we feel about Him or treat Him, He still is the same incredibly secure and great I AM. And that is something to be extremely thankful for.

Because of God’s identity being I AM, you can still have identity, purpose and meaning after the death of your child. It will take a while, but I and many other bereaved parents can tell you that it is worth pursuing and fighting for! And please know that we are here for you, to walk with you to that place, without shaming you or judging you, no matter how long it takes.

Laura has written a book, Triple Crown Transformation, that has a chapter about our identity. Let us know if you would like to receive this as a free downloadable eBook. (It is also available on Amazon in paperback and audiobook.)