I always dreamed of becoming a mother. When my husband Chris and I got married in 2011, we immediately began to discuss starting a family. In my youthful innocence, I never imagined it would be so difficult for me to become pregnant–but it was. After two years of trying to conceive without success and no clear medical explanation, my dream of motherhood felt increasingly out of reach.
We were encouraged to pursue fertility treatments, but navigating the options felt overwhelming. Chris gently suggested we pause and take time to pray before making any decisions. We prayed for clarity and direction. We prayed that God would open my womb and allow us to conceive. During that time, we miraculously became pregnant with our first child, Ethan.
We wholeheartedly praised God for this miraculous answer to prayer. Each day, we prayed over our long-awaited child—that God would use his life to have eternal impact and point others to the hope of Jesus Christ. When I prayed this, I imagined my one-day 18-year-old son announcing he wanted to become a pastor or a missionary. God answered that prayer—but not in the way I expected.
At nearly 20 weeks pregnant, I walked into my anatomy scan, eager to find out whether our baby was a boy or a girl. I was giddy with excitement. Pregnancy suited me well—I savored every moment, I read all the pregnancy articles, I felt like I was glowing, and I was ready to pick out paint swatches for our nursery.
The scan revealed that our baby was a boy, and we named him Ethan Daniel. But the scan also showed several concerning markers, including anomalies in his brain and heart. We were referred to a geneticist and transferred to the high-risk side of the OB-GYN department.
We were offered multiple tests to determine Ethan’s diagnosis, but we chose to delay testing until birth after learning that a diagnosis wouldn’t change the medical team’s care but was only meant to help us make decisions. We had already made our choice: we would love and embrace him no matter what challenges he or I faced. We chose life. This child—created in the image of God—had value, regardless of his prognosis or the length of his days. We knew that bringing home a medically fragile child would change our lives—but we had no doubts.
We dove headfirst into research, high-risk appointments, and preparing as best we could for a planned cesarean with specialists in Los Angeles and life with a medically complex child. We prayed before each appointment that this would be the day doctors were stumped by a miraculous healing, but instead, each visit brought more somber news. Doctors suspected Ethan’s declining health was the result of a chromosomal issue, and new complications were found at nearly every appointment.
Chris and I shared our journey openly and invited friends, family, and even people we had never met to pray with us. We believed in God’s power to heal and knew we couldn’t walk this road alone. The outpouring of support was overwhelming—people across the country were praying for our son. Yet even as we prayed for healing, I wrestled with the possibility that God’s “best” might not align with my own hopes. Deep down, I believed God could heal Ethan, but I wasn’t convinced He would. That terrified me.
When someone at church said, “You just have to have faith—God will heal him,” I felt unsettled.
I knew God could miraculously heal and I prayed boldly for that. But the Lord reminded me of Job, who lost everything yet worshiped God, and of David, who fasted and prayed for his child’s healing, only to bury him and still trust God. If men like Job and David endured deep sorrow, who was I to expect a life without pain?
God began gently exposing the false prosperity gospel ideas I had unknowingly internalized through the years—the belief that faith and obedience would guarantee a life of physical ease. He reminded me that I couldn’t manipulate Him with my words or futile attempts at heaping up good works.
He called me to surrender to His perfect wisdom, goodness, and sovereignty no matter what. As Psalm 34:19 says, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all.” I came to see that God isn’t primarily concerned with making my life comfortable. He is shaping me for eternity, and the greatest gift He can give is more of Himself. My heart longed for comfort, but God was inviting me into deeper trust and an eternal perspective that shaped my prayer life.
Still, I wrestled with Him. With each new piece of bad news, I felt disappointed by God. “I’m so angry at God,” I confessed to my pastor’s wife, Debbie, through tears. “I know He’s in control, but I don’t understand why He would allow this.” Debbie didn’t back away or try to dismiss my pain. She reminded me that God welcomes our honesty and that I could bring all my feelings to Him. Then she gently took my hand and said something I will never forget: “No matter what happens, God will not leave you empty-handed. You may not receive what you asked for, but He will only give you good things.”
Those words echoed in my heart as I navigated waiting rooms, sleepless nights, and waves of fear. I clung to the promise of God’s goodness. In Matthew 7:11, Jesus says, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” If flawed human parents give good gifts, how much more will our perfect Father give good things to His children? I began praying not just for changed circumstances, but for eyes to see the good God was giving, even in the sorrow.
Ethan Daniel Hernandez was born on August 16, 2015 at 1:32pm. My husband gripped my hand and we prayed for Ethan, for the doctors, and for peace as my medical team performed an emergency cesarean. After months of waiting, our long-awaited prayed-over child was here and he was alive. But his body was incredibly weak.
“I’m sorry, there’s nothing else we can do,” the doctor said, after 30-minutes of life saving efforts. Ethan was laid on my chest. I stared down at his face and felt the love swell inside me. It was the happiest and saddest moment of my life, all at once. I studied his features and tried to squeeze an entire lifetime of love into those sacred minutes.
My husband and I held him. We prayed over him. We loved him.
Ethan was called home into the arms of Jesus at 3:05pm. Testing on his cord blood revealed that he had been born with Full Trisomy 9, a fatal chromosome abnormality.
I wrestled with God’s goodness in the months that followed—and He met me there. When I turned to scripture in a season of what I called “angry Bible reading”–trying to make sense of the “promises” I had misunderstood or taken out of context–that I found the treasure of Jesus. There in the pages of my tear-stained Bible–I was met with Jesus, man of sorrows, who wept with me in my grief. I found the gospel. I saw how sin entered the world through man’s sin and rebellion, and how death and brokenness touched every part of creation. I saw that God didn’t leave us there. He promised a Savior who would come and crush the serpent’s head. He sent Jesus to take the punishment we deserved, to rescue us from sin and death, and to offer adoption and eternal life for all who believe. One day, He will return and every tear will be wiped away. But until then, Jesus assured us that we would suffer–but to take heart, that He has overcome the world (John 16:33). While I’m not grateful for my son’s death, I’m incredibly grateful for the way God has worked through it to give me a deeper dependence on Him, a firmer grasp on the gospel, and a greater love for His Word.
Ethan was and still is a miracle–a precious gift from God who continues to impact others for Christ, including me. I praise God for answering my prayer, even in the most unexpected way. I’ve seen that prayer answered in unbelieving friends and family who heard the gospel at his memorial service. I’ve seen it in opened doors to share the reason for the Hope I have with others–in conversations at church, at the park, on my living room couch, and at school pickup. I’ve seen it in how God has used Ethan’s life to soften my heart and open my eyes to others around me. I’ve seen it in how God equipped me to draw near to Him in a season of recurrent miscarriage after Ethan’s death, and again during a 70-day hospital bedrest while pregnant with our living son. I’ve seen it in how Ethan’s life has made me a more eternal-minded parent and brought gospel conversations into our home each day. I’ve seen in the ways He has used Ethan’s life to open doors to writing a book and now ministering to hurting women through Hope Mommies and the Hope Mommies Podcast. Through Ethan, I have learned (and am continuing to learn) sacrificial love, humility, patience, joy, accepting help, compassion, honesty with God, and how to cling tightly to Jesus.
One of the most meaningful things people did was acknowledge my pain. Debbie’s influence (see story) was especially impactful because she consistently validated my grief and the horror of death. She didn’t try to minimize it or rush me through it—she was willing to sit with me in it. That made me much more open to receiving Scripture and words of truth from her, because they came from someone who had first acknowledged my grief. I’ve found this to be the norm in when I felt the most ministered to by others was when they were willing to weep with me. It also meant so much when people said Ethan’s name or asked about him. Practically speaking, friends and loved ones brought us meals, helped plan the memorial service, watched our dogs, mowed our lawn, and faithfully prayed for us. They sent texts and cards. They sent scripture. Some close friends simply offered to sit with me or meet me for a walk.
Don’t shame someone for their sadness. Sure, grief can sometimes tempt us toward sin, but grief and tears themselves are not sinful. Weeping is a welcomed part of the Christian life. It’s okay if you don’t have the perfect words to fix this or make the pain go away. Your presence means more than having all the answers. Don’t pretend the loss didn’t happen because you don’t want to make the griever sad. They haven’t forgotten and mentioning it doesn’t remind them of the loss–it reminds them someone else cares and remembers.
Avoid statements like, “You’ll have another baby”, “It was meant to be”, “Heaven needed another angel”, “They wouldn’t want you to be sad”, or anything starting with “At least…” These statements may be well-intended but often feel dismissive and minimize deep sorrow (and some are even untrue).
I’m so grateful for the work you do. In the earliest days of my grief, I often found myself searching for blogs and stories from others who had walked through deep suffering and were still clinging to Jesus. Their testimonies gave me hope and reminded me that I wasn’t alone. I’m thankful for the way you’ve done that so beautifully through your book, and I’m honored to share it with others as a resource!