# @hopewdm on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DJosbj4uNUu
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/30499954-hopewdm-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/3f5167a0a3.jpg
- **Posted:** 2025-05-14T13:35:06.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** HOPE (@HopeWDM) — https://gondola.cc/HopeWDM

## Caption

My family lives in San Antonio, Texas, and we visited Lutheran Church of Hope in person for the first time on Easter Sunday 2025, but our Hope story didn’t begin that day. It started five years earlier …

We had been attending a Lutheran church in San Antonio, where our children were confirmed and my husband, Steven, and I were involved in classes. Then COVID hit, and the church closed. My husband’s maintenance business was on hold, and there was no work. We were busy trying to make ends meet. It was tough on our family. 

Then the worst happened on Mother’s Day of 2020. I had a severe cough that kept getting worse. I was opening a gift from my daughter when I coughed into a tissue—it was full of blood. I went to the emergency room alone, since family wasn’t allowed. 

It was decided I needed to be put on a ventilator, but when they started to insert the breathing tube, I went into cardiac arrest. Once they revived me, they were able to put me on the ventilator, and I stayed on it for two months. 

During those months, my family camped in the parking lot, wanting to be close. It was during that time that my oldest daughter, Jaimie, discovered Lutheran Church of Hope online. Every Sunday, when I was in the hospital, they sat in the bed of my husband’s truck right outside and watched Hope.

When they took me off the ventilator, I ended up having a stroke, and I woke to the news that I had stage four kidney disease. Alone in my hospital room, I sensed God’s presence. He saved me.

Once I was released, Jaimie made sure we gathered in the living room on Sunday mornings to watch Hope online and worship as a family. My husband even put a table in front of the TV for communion. My sickness led me to Jesus, which led me to Hope, and helped heal my family. 

When we made the decision to visit Hope in person on Easter, we were not only welcomed by many of the pastors, but we were also baptized. My family has grown stronger than ever because Hope came into our lives. We are continuing to strive and reach out to the world around us and share the everlasting love of Jesus Christ, as Hope has taught us. 

RoGena S.
#HopeStories

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## Credits

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## Tags

hopestories

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