The Joyful Mourning - A Podcast for Women Who Have Experienced Pregnancy or Infant Loss · Ashlee Proffitt

188. Hope When the Holidays Hurt [Part 04] with Kristin Hernandez

·31 min·2 clips

Kristin Hernandez reveals how devastating losses made her question if God truly loved her.

This episode concludes a four-part holiday series on finding hope after pregnancy or infant loss, hosted by Ashley Prophet with guest Kristin Hernandez, author of the "Hope When the Holidays Hurt" Advent devotional. Kristin speaks from her personal experience of losing five babies, including her son Ethan, and the subsequent birth of her living child, Andrew. The central theme is a grieving mother's struggle to believe in God's love amidst profound pain, specifically examining the feeling of being forgotten or unloved by God. Kristin references the well-known Bible verse John 3:16 to frame God's love as a free gift, analogous to a parent's unconditional love for their child. She recounts a conversation with a NICU nurse who asked why she loved her baby, highlighting that parental love is intrinsic and not based on a child's actions. Kristin applies this analogy to argue that God's love for people is similarly unconditional and not something to be earned through faithfulness or perfect behavior. She cites Romans 5:8 and 1 John 4:10 to support the idea that God's love was demonstrated through Jesus, independent of human merit. For those wrestling with doubt, Kristin advises considering the eternal perspective, noting that present grief is small compared to eternity, and that God mourns death as an enemy conquered through Jesus. The second part offers practical advice for navigating Christmas morning and the transition into the new year. Kristin suggests creating a flexible plan for the day that includes physical space and time for grief, while granting permission to change plans or feel a mix of sadness and happiness. She reveals that New Year's Eve was unexpectedly the hardest holiday for her after her loss, as public celebrations of moving forward felt painful when she wanted to stay in the year that held her baby. The episode directs listeners to a free holiday workbook at themorning.com/holidays for further planning tools and promotes the private online community at themorning.com/community for support. A memorable moment is Kristin's raw admission of her internal conflict: feeling confident in God's reality and power yet feeling unloved and forgotten due to her losses. The analogy of a mother's love for her infant, especially one held after death, serves as a powerful, relatable framework for understanding divine love. The insight that New Year's celebrations can feel like a painful, forced march away from a child's memory resonates as a specific and often unspoken grief trigger. The tone is compassionate, educational, and deeply personal, blending scriptural reflection with empathetic, practical guidance. The style is conversational and devotional, offering comfort without prescribing a single emotional response. This episode would deeply resonate with Christian women grieving a pregnancy or infant loss, particularly those wrestling with their faith during the holidays. Listeners seeking a secular or clinical perspective on grief may find the exclusively theological framework less applicable.

As heard by us

Holiday grief meets Scripture without the usual platitudes.

This final holiday episode sits with grief instead of trying to talk around it. Kristen Hernandez joins the conversation to look at holiday pain, the lie that God's love has to be earned, and the way Scripture can steady faith when the season hurts.

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Why you'd press play

For the holiday week when grief and faith feel hardest to hold together.

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