Jennifer Saake

It has been just over 14 years since I had to begin re-learning how to communicate, after multiple catastrophic strokes. For the first few years, my memory was so bad that I could not complete a sentence without forgetting what i was trying to say.  “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”  - John 3:16 Next week will mark 5 years since I first watched Susan Heck's  A Call To Scripture Memory  video and started trying long-passage Scripture memory as “brain training” for ongoing stroke recovery. (I clearly know that the date was Dec. 10, because this date marks a landmark related to our first daughter, Noel Alexis, who was born directly from my womb into Heaven back in 1994.) Brain training was only the start. After a decade of infertility with recurrent losses (multiple miscarriage and adoption losses), the failure of the business where we had hoped to raise our children (...

Tomorrow will be the anniversary, my "re-birthday" when life stated over from square one. Thirteen years ago I heard the word "hypermobile" for the first time. I was 39 years old and a chiropractor had just rotated my neck and commented on my extreme flexibility. That first side of my neck adjusted upon first attempt, but the other side just wouldn't realign. After multiple attempts , my vertebral artery was ruptured in the back of my neck and I instantly experience two catastrophic (either should have been fatal) brain bleeds (strokes) there on the treatment table, initially triggering a seizure, blindness, slurred speech, and a rapid progression to loss of consciousness. I was in the hospital for nearly 2 months, shocking doctors that I even survived the first night. I had to relearn how to breathe without a machine, swallow, see, hear (we eventually discovered I had lost 70-90% of my hearing), sit up without two adults holding me, bladder control, and everyt...

I, Jennifer Saake , stumbled into the online world in my mid-early 20s, around 1995 or '96. As you may have noticed, I've been fairly quiet this past couple of years. Here's why. After processing my own journey online for so long, last year I sort of ran out of words and went into public hibernation. As I prepare to once again start fresh in an attempt to plunge back into the blogosphere, here's my backstory, divided into about 10 sub-headings so than you can skim topics. (Many of the headings are linked to more detailed pages.): Infertility, Miscarriages, Adoption Losses Three years in, our infertility and loss journeys became lived out in the public eye, as God allowed me the incredible privilege of interacting with tens of thousands of other grieving women, both through  Hannah's Prayer Ministries  and then, a decade later, with the publication of  my first book , Hannah's Hope: Seeking God's Heart in the Midst of Infertility, Miscarriage, & Adoptio...

As I looked up dates for this week, I realized that it was EXACTLY two years ago this coming Saturday, on December 10, 2020, when I watched Susan Heck's " A Call to Scripture Memory " - https://youtu.be/WVvPtTCni1E - and asked God if it would be possible for me to commit ONE short book of the Bible to memory by January 1, 2022? I was intrigued by the "brain training" aspect of the concept, deeply convicted of the spiritual benefits of this idea, and incredibly sincere in my desire to hide God's Word in my heart. I was also cynical and skeptical that it would be remotely possible for me, with such extensive memory incapability after strokes had wiped out so much of my brain, hitting memory centers hard!  I flipped through my Bible and felt satisfied that I should try the book of Jude since I figured it must be the shortest book, at only a single chapter comprised on just 25 verses. I didn't  know my Bible  well enough to realize that there are four books ...

I'm told that, due to copyright issues, I legally must tell a story that includes a recipe, rathan than being able to directly publish My Family's Very Favorite Banana Bread recipe. So here is my story... Tears are close to the surface today. It doesn't take much for them to spring into my eyes.  A kind word. A well wish. A verse of the Bible...  October 25, 2011. This was our "before and after moment," the single event that defines our family's history. My life has never been the same since. Nor my husband's life. Nor our children's... Yesterday was hard, reliving countless hospital memories I don't care to revisit, time paralyzed in the memories (some of being literally, physically locked in the confines of a mind unable to communicate movement signals to my body). Yes, diagnosed PTSD. The early hours of this morning I tossed and turned, desperately wanting to sleep through this whole da...