POLAR BEAR 2010

This weekend is the Polar Bear Run. It has been 2 years since the cutest runner ever was in the field. Some of you may remember me writing about this last year (click here to read). This was the last 'big thing' Brock did before he died days later.

We again placed Brockie-Bands in 2,000 bags for the runners and volunteers. We were not sure we would do this again. However, after prayer and leading, we are glad to be a part of the Polar Bear Run. If you are new to the blog we say, "Welcome!" If you are back for the first time in a while, "Welcome back."

As Jesus said, "I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world (John 16:33)." We hope you find encouragement here as you journey in this race called "LIFE."

As we were making the decision whether to provide the Brockie-Bands this year, we were encouraged by the stories many of you have shared about wearing yours. Our son, Mason's, coach wears his to every game to remind him that he is an example and needs to act with integrity as he "Lives Hard" on the field. Drew's fraternity brother wears his to remind him to "Love Hard" when dealing with his children, even when it is tough. And a runner friend wears his to finish his runs strong as if "Running to Jesus."

Our ultimate goal is to finish this race strong, so that, at the end, we receive the words we all want to hear from our Lord..."Well done! My good and faithful servant. Come and share my joy."

If you have a Brockie-Band story, it would make our day if you would please leave a comment. Tell us why you wear it or a conversation that has come from it.

And if you don't have one, the boys would love to send you one, free. Since I dropped the ball on this offer last year, the boys have 'assumed' the project :) Just send your address in an email to dnmeadows@comcast.net.

So, for inspiration...




RUN HARD!!!

Pink or Blue?

Pink....

or Blue......??

We are getting close to knowing. The excitement is building around here. All our emotions are actually in full swing. Drew & I are experiencing grief and joy all at the same time. The intensity lately has been hard to handle.

People are still asking if we know what the baby is. While it has been the most photographed(by sonogram) baby we have had, the answer is still...no. But soon we will know. I will admit that on some days the not knowing has gotten the best of me. I went to one of my sonogram appointments by myself and I have to say I was a little tempted for the lady to just tell me. I don't think I could have kept it to myself, though, so I closed my eyes at the right time.

Many have asked what I feel it is. In the beginning I thought it was a boy. Then I went through a girl phase for about two months. Now I am back to feeling that it is a boy! I think that is all I can imagine bringing home from the hospital. Drew actually also feels that it is a boy. All the boys think it is a boy; however, Asa said he wished it was a girl but thinks it is a boy.

I am so glad that God decides and not us. I can trust that He knows just what we need to continue on the journey of healing. I can think of things about either sex that would be great and also things that would hurt. Just as each of our children are unique in their own ways, I could see that having another little boy to love would be just great. I have already wondered if he would have mannerisms or looks that would remind me of Brock. To see the hand me down clothes again would be sweet or would it hurt as a constant reminder of the last little boy that was in the middle of wearing them.

A little girl would be very different and not have the reminders, obviously, that a boy would have with Brock. Mason said he just can't see us with a girl. He said, "What would we do?!" I assured him that I could figure it out. But the thought that a little girl came into our family after Brock's death is also a little painful.

See how complicated?! I am glad God is in charge of my life and not me. I know that He had this planned long before Brock's birth or death. I know that He is walking with us and that any hurt He will touch and heal. I know that on Wednesday, when we see what He's been up to, we will be filled with Joy. I know that any emotions that flood over us, He will be right there holding us.

So now the interactive portion of my blog: your turn! Post a comment...what do you think it is?
Thank you for continuing to lift us up in prayer. We need it. My love,
Nita

Where I've Been

A more appropriate title should be, Where Everybody Else in the Family has Been.

I have actually been at home while the boys have gone to exciting places around the country and continent. All is well, but I admit, it was a bit too much motion for my 9-month pregnant soul. I can't believe that the date on my last post is October 2. Please tell me today is not the 26th!! I feel as if I should apologize to you faithful readers. I am sorry! I will warn you...reading this post may make you as exhausted as I am...and so are the two snoring boys next to me.

The first week of October we had a Fall Break from school. We were off for the whole week. My first thought was to not take the time off but keep on pushing so I would be ahead when the baby comes. However, after schooling for about 8 weeks, I could see our schedule slipping a bit and decided we probably needed the week off. I delved into cleaning out closets...not Brock's closet, just all the others in the house.

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. " Matthew 6: 19-20.

I am always so convicted by this verse when I start to clean out. How did I accumulate all these "treasures"? We just moved 5 years ago. I felt like I did a drastic clean-out then. The amount of time it takes to clean out, rearrange, dust, organize and make decisions about this stuff makes me just want to scream. It definitely takes away from any time I could spend storing up treasures in Heaven. I debated for weeks in my mind before starting the cleaning out process...Do I sell it on eBay? Have a garage sale? Or just drive it all to the thrift store for donation? That cluttered my mind and time too. ARRRHHHH!

The next week, I felt swamped by all the mess I had made. We started back to school. Trying to get back on schedule made me think perhaps the break was not worth it. Mid-week we decided to have a garage sale on Friday. So the mess continued to grow all week until we could move it outside Friday morning.

Friday Morning, October 16th, Drew and Asa got up at 4 am. They put out our garage sale signs about 4:30am while heading to the airport to drop Asa off. He flew to North Dakota to hunt with my parents. Some of you may remember he did this last year. It was such a blessing spending time with my father. Drew got home around 7 am. We quickly set up the junk, I mean wonderful earthly treasures, we were trying to convince others to take off our hands. Eight hours later we had almost $600 in hand.

Tired but contented, we went back inside to realize we forgot 4 items that would have sold easily. The reason we forgot - they were in Brock's closet! I caught Drew in a glazed stare in Brock's room. Having to pull the items from the closet was hard. Realizing that we did not have a 4-year old to enjoy them was even harder. Oh, how we miss him!

We doggedly loaded the rest on the back of the trailer and took it straight to our church-sponsored new thrift store. Even though I was tired, I felt such a relief to be rid of all the clutter. A small taste of freedom, for sure.

This past week, Drew once again got up at 4am and headed out for the airport. This time he took Mason. They traveled to Matamoros, Mexico for a father- son mission trip to build houses, do prison ministry and orphan ministry. This is a trip he took Asa on when he was in 6th grade. When we talked about it in the late summer, it seemed really far away from when the baby would be born. But last week it made us both a little nervous with only three weeks to go. While they were gone, I picked Asa up from the airport. He had a great trip. Last year, because he rode in the RV with my parents, he took his books and did school while he was gone. This year he flew, so there was not room to take his books. The end of last week was wild, trying to help him catch up on his school.

With prayer warriors in full strength, Drew and Mason made it home this past Sunday night. I cried as they walked in the door. Drew said, "Why are you crying, I made it home and you did not have the baby?!" I said, "That is exactly why I'm crying." Tears of joy, relief and blessing. I think I held my breath a bit while he was gone.

I was one happy mama as I took in the sights and sounds of everyone trying to tell of their adventures all at the same time...Asa telling of hunting tales from North Dakota, Barrett telling of his new flag football spin-move and Mason telling of the precious kids he played with in the Mexican orphanage. Drew and I caught each others eyes and smiled...ahhh, life is good!

God I Praise You! Thank you for allowing safe travels for everyone and great adventure for all. While the "safe" part of me just wanted to keep everyone at home and say no to all the opportunities, you call us outside of ourselves so that you can work. I am glad I trusted in Your goodness. You provided blessings once again...beyond what we could imagine. AMEN

Still here...

Hey y'all! I have been thinking and praying for you a bunch. I am so sorry I have not written lately. I could give you a long list of excuses but basically life has been moving at warp speed. I am still trying to sort out many things like my wide range of emotions. Matter of fact, I have several posts already typed and in my mind BUT I am just not ready to hit the "publish" button yet.

I have not forgotten about my blog or you sweet people who check in with us here. God has used many of you also during my time of "little writing" this summer to encourage me to keep going. While I am full of emotions still in the second year of our grief (and being pregnant on top of that!) God has been teaching me many things about myself and Him. I find it hard to write about these things until I feel I have sorted through them.

As I was asking God where to serve this fall, He made it very clear that one was "in my home" and the other was "this blog." So I will be here sharing what God is doing as I run to Him.

Updates from our "Living Hard"

The question of casual conversation these days seems to be, " Did you have a good summer?" Our summer was great with a mix of fast and slow. With the poor economy, we knew we were not able to take a vacation like we did last year, so I got a crazy idea to write out our blessings on one of our interior glass doors. I thought as we walked by them daily it would remind us each time to give thanks. I also hoped it would minimize our whining. I bought some Crayola Glass Markers and wrote at the top of the door, "Summer Fun." I left the markers close by and asked the boys to write things they were thankful for that they got to do this summer.

Some of the things that made the lists were:

White Water Passes - Bought with $ Grandparents gave them for good grades.

Playing Uno on the back porch after dinner.

Travel Baseball Tournaments.

'Man Hunt' at friends' homes.

Growing a Garden.

Beach Trip - Mason was invited for a week to the beach with a friend - What a blessing!

Playing Golf with Daddy and Daddy Curt as Caddies.

Hollie's Wedding

Chasing down the ice cream man.

Sleep Overs.

Picking Melons from the field.

Selling watermelons.

It worked! We had a blessed summer indeed, and we relived each joy as we would see them on the door. We enjoyed our exercise in thankfulness so much that I may have to put up "Fall Blessings" as we anticipate more wonderful blessings.

We officially started school three weeks ago. We are off to a good start! The two bigger boys go out for classes two days a week. They are at home for three days. Barrett is at home with me doing 2nd grade. For those interested, we are using Sonlight's Year 2 Curriculum, studying the the fall of Rome to the present.

We did have several painful goodbyes this summer that happened around the same week. Our sweet 16- year old dog, Josie, died. After you have had a child die, the death of a pet is completely in perspective. However, Josie had been around for so long. It was sad thinking of all the life that had passed with her around. She was a great dog that we got from the Humane Society. I have pictures of her with each of the boys. The boys even joked that she may just stick around for the new baby.

Another tearful hug goodbye came when our house cleaner told me she had to go back to Brazil to look after her sick father. She was here the afternoon Brock died; she stood over me and wailed and prayed in Portuguese. We also stood tearfully at the grave of one of Mason's baseball coaches who, at only 39, died suddenly, leaving behind his wife and two young boys. The sadness over these things seemed to do just like grief does...it digs up other unresolved grief emotions. Or, maybe it is the change of "seasons" as that always seems to send me sailing on the waves of grief.

Yes, just like before, the change of seasons seems to have taken me under a bit. I am not sure if it is that as soon as I get used to surviving one season, then another one comes. The new season brings reminders of all the things we did when Brock was here during that time of year. These reminders bring up that deep hurt, more than just the ones I live with daily. Or... is it that as I went down the list of things that the boys needed for school, I felt like there should be one more list to think of? Or... perhaps it is that as everything is changing, I feel as if my hurt and ache are still there somewhat unchanged by the passage of time yet moved on by the days of the calendar. Either way it is what it is ....grief. Some days I sit in it, some days I stand and other days I walk, but everyday I give it to Jesus and ask Him to hold me as I Love Hard on those I still have days on earth with. I ask him to fill me with Hope for the days I will spend with Him in eternity.

Oh, it feels good to be back here with you! Thanks for all your prayers and support. I will post again soon. I promise...

Project 365

At the end of 2008, I happened upon this scrapbooking idea of taking a picture a day to create a family album. It was called Project 365 from Becky Higgins. I love to scrap book and have done so in the past but like many, I am very far behind. For all my boys I did a Creative Memories Baby Book of their first year. I had not gotten around to doing Brock's. Now I have the task of not recording a Year but a Life. One of the things that makes it easier is that two sweet friends from our old neighborhood created a book with the pages already decorated so all I have to do is add the pictures. One of them is a Creative Memories consultant, and she knew I had not started Brock's book yet. This was such a precious gift to me. What a provision!

So having not scrapbooked in years, I happened upon this idea a few days before it went on sale on Jan. 1, 2009. Little did I know how hip I was...all the kits sold out in 20 minutes, (but not before I got one for me and one for a friend!) The idea behind the kit is that you take a picture a day to capture the life between the big events. The pages are laid-out with a place for a week of pictures and spaces to journal about each picture of the day.

I loved the idea as I felt the Lord showing me in the horror of this past year how we still have had (and will have) such sweet times as a family. He taught me how to appreciate the everyday little things. Some days it was just my kids' smile that kept me going that day. When I started Project 365 at the beginning of 2009, I just wanted to remind us of the precious things of our life when we look back instead of just thinking of all the grief-filled moments. Little did I know that our book, when complete at the end of 2009, will have pictures of a new member of our family. I cry everytime I think of that. God is so good. To think He knew before I started the book what the pages would hold. When I started I could not bear the thought of doing a family album without Brock. So I decided that I would include a Remember When photo of him. I would use pictures that had been taken on that day in the past.

It is a strange thing but lately I have found myself in a deep place of grief over Brock. I have grieved little things again much like in the beginning. One of those things is photos of our family, the ones where it is all of us including Brock; the ones where I look and think, "THAT is my family!"...not the ones with just three boys. The ones with three boys still look like someone is missing. Well, with the addition of this child, our family portrait will change once again. The new pictures will not have Brock and that hurts so bad. I guess what I am grieving is that before the addition of this child, I could go back and show someone a complete picture of my family. Now that too will be incomplete, for it will not include this precious one I am carrying. I know this may seem like a little thing, and I have kind of beat myself up for feeling this way, but I have realized that in grief...everything is real. It is important for me to acknowledge it rather than let it sit there and fester. It will come out, one way or the other. Oh, I can't wait to get to Heaven where the picture will be complete. There will be no need for a photo because we will all be together forever!

So...I am overwhelmed when I think that God knew I would feel this way and knew when I started this family ablum that an album where there would be pictures of all of us would be important to me. He is so sweet and cares so deeply for me that He takes care of the smallest of desires.

This past week I got together with some friends and we worked on our books. I had not updated the album with the pictures I had taken since March. I was overwhelmed when I came to April 3rd and put in the picture of Drew and Me with the positive pregnancy test. This was the first time that I had pictured and journaled in the album about this baby. There it is. An album with all of us in pictures.

Here are a few of my Pictures of the Day:

Love Hard!
On this day, 16 years of marriage. On our 2nd anniversary we took a pregnancy test to learn that we were expecting our first child. And on our 16th anniversary we took a test to confirm we were expecting our 5th child. (Notice the test sticking out of Drew's pocket)

Live Hard!
We called this a 'redneck hot tub.' One of the first really hot days of Spring 2007 and the boys turned playing with the water hose into this.

My brother in law gave us a kite after Brock died. We had not had a chance to fly it. The other day we had a windy day so we headed for the park. All the boys were able to get it flying. There is something uplifting about flying a kite.
I will lift my eyes to the hills - where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. Psalm 121:1-2.

Strawberry Picking! They were delicious. We ate, cooked and put up strawberries for days. On this day, one picture could not capture it. So in my book, I did a little Photoshop magic and put them together like this. {For those of you wondering about just one picture a day}

Baseball, Baseball, Baseball. All three boys played this spring. It was busy but fun. Asa and Barrett are finished with Recreation season. Mason has a few more weeks of Travel Ball. Go Team!

Runnin' with Jesus!
Remember When... June 2, 2007. Brock broke his arm! Once all the screaming and the Doctors were done, I think he was a bit proud of his cast. So precious!!

This is the day the Lord has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24.

Life

Help! I haven't blogged in a while and I don't know where to start.....

Hey y'all! I am sorry I haven't posted. I have been thinking about you. God has continued to write His story on our life. It has been fast lately & I have so much to write. Last week we were out of town at the beach. Drew and I led worship and the children's time for the family camp our church does. We had a great time. It was hard to think of being at a family camp because I only had two children with me. Asa went on the Middle School Choir Tour Mission Trip.

So.... a great week at the beach where we wrote Brock's name in the sand.
I am always amazed when I am at the beach that this world is under a curse and that it will all be perfected in the New Heaven and New Earth. Parts are so beautiful that it is foretaste of the grandeur of Heaven. I love the "small" feeling I get at the beach. I am humbled and amazed that the God that created the vast sea shore and told the ocean where to stop loves me and wants to have a relationship with me.

Asa had a great mission trip. He boldly shared the Gospel with two boys. They both invited Jesus into their life as their Lord & Savior! He was so excited. He told the story about his experience at the homecoming concert tonight. I cried through the whole thing. His boldness and enthusiasm encouraged me. He was so confident in the Lord and did a wonderful job speaking in front of a large crowd.

We had a glorious Easter Weekend! I want to write about it soon. I have loved thinking all week long on the message that God spoke to me through our pastor's sermon. We had a sweet time with my brother's family which includes my niece, her husband and their two little boys. We had a 2-year old again in our home running around all weekend. The first morning as he ran with Barrett into our bedroom, I held my eyes closed for a moment and wished I was waking up from the nightmare of Brock's death. I imagined it was Brock's feet pitterpatting with Barrett. The boys loved having Brecken around and couldn't get enough of him. Barrett even said to me on Saturday that he wished we could have a baby and it be born 2 years old.

Well, on Sunday morning after church, we shared with the boys that we are going to have a baby (but not born 2 yrs. old like Barrett said). Yes, you read it right, I am pregnant!!!! I am about 9 weeks. It is a little early for me to be comfortable telling. We usually wait until 12 weeks or so. We decided to tell so that we could have you once more pray for us and walk this journey with us. The story is beautiful and I hope to be able to tell you all about it someday. I would rather sit with each one of you over a cup of coffee and tell you the story. We are excited, but as you can imagine, the news comes with a whole range of emotions. Well there it is!!!! Maybe now you can see why I wasn't sure where to start. Thanks for loving us and praying for us. My Love, Nita

Why I Love Boys

If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to {laugh at him} help him up! Ecclesiastes 4:10 {humor added by me}