thank you Heather S. for this motivation today...
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Monday, September 23, 2013
Yard Sale!
One Man’s Trash is Another Man’s Treasure!
We are SO grateful for the love we’ve received by everyone! We really feel blessed by having such a strong support group in our corner. A lot of folks have asked us if there is any way you could help us with our adoption. Well there is!
On Saturday, November 2nd we are having a yard sale where 100% of the proceeds go towards our adoption costs. Some friends have graciously offered to host it at their home here in Donelson but we need help in acquiring plenty of items to sell. If you have items you generally set aside for Goodwill, we will HAPPILY take them off your hands! Please spread the word to your friends, family & co-workers. We can pick items up from your house if that makes it easier on you as well.
Items we’re looking for:
· Shoes
· Accessories (purses, jewelry, etc.)
· Miscellaneous gadgets (kitchen, tools, etc.)
· Home Décor
· Toys
· Books
· CD’s/DVD’s
· Furniture & large items are great, however, coordinating a way for us to pick up would need to be sorted out ahead of time. We don't have a truck OR a lot of room to store extra furniture.
Again, anything you want to get rid of, even if it’s an item worth a nickel, will help us out! We’ll be so thankful for anything your willing to give.
If you have any questions, or want to schedule a pickup, please email: brooke.a.harris@gmail.com or connect with us on Facebook.
Here are the official details on the yard sale:
Saturday, November 2nd 7am – 1pm
The Sparrow Household
2605 Lumar Lane
Nashville, TN 37214
(house w/the yellow door)
Beverages, snacks & maybe even some arts & crafts will be sold as well!
Thank you all!
Brooke & Kevin
Brooke & Kevin
Friday, September 20, 2013
Life is a Gorgeous, Broken Gift
I firmly believe that music can get you through a lot of struggles. There have been a handful of songs that encapsulate the struggle that we deal with in life so beautifully, that I would listen to them on repeat & they'd almost become prayers for me.
One that has now become one of my all-time favorite songs is by Sleeping At Last off their Yearbook Album called 'Emphasis'. It's become so special to me that I've told countless amounts of people about the song, the band & even a sweet friend sent me this gift:
What's cool is that a year ago he released the sweetest music video for it. It gave me chills (& maybe a tear or two) when I first saw it. Enjoy!
One that has now become one of my all-time favorite songs is by Sleeping At Last off their Yearbook Album called 'Emphasis'. It's become so special to me that I've told countless amounts of people about the song, the band & even a sweet friend sent me this gift:
Life is a gorgeous, broken gift...
What's cool is that a year ago he released the sweetest music video for it. It gave me chills (& maybe a tear or two) when I first saw it. Enjoy!
Monday, September 16, 2013
Crop to Adopt
On October 4th and 5th at Clough Pike Baptist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio we will be having the 1st ever Crop to Adopt fundraiser. This will be a great opportunity to get long-neglected scrapbooking done & to have a fun fellowship with other ladies. There will be door prizes & raffle drawings as well.
You have two options for purchasing table space for this event:
·
$10 to
crop on Friday night only. (6:30
pm until whenever you get tired!)
·
$30 to
crop from Friday night through 4:00
pm on Saturday
Bring an air mattress or sleeping bag & make it a pajama party!
Snacks & drinks will be available all weekend. On Saturday we will serve breakfast & lunch.
T-shirts for this event are also available! Add $15 to your registration fee & request your shirt size. *Order by 9/18
You may send in your registration fee to Patti
Maschmeier via USPS. If you’d rather pay electronically,
you may do so using PayPal. Contact Patti for PayPal payments.
Clough Pike Baptist Church is located at
Cincinnati, OH 45245
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Pack Your Bags
We all have milestones in our lives that stand out in our minds perfectly. If we close our eyes & think about a day or a moment, we can place ourselves back in time & remember every nuance like it was happening all over again.
…Picture day, 2nd grade. Falling off my bike after school due to a race-gone-wrong with my sister. Her carrying me home, a bloody mess & all. {Brooke}
…Canoeing down the White Water River with my dad. We had all gotten out & I was caught in the current & taken down stream. I was scared & my dad grabbed me & carried me back to shore. {Kevin}
…Walking down the aisle & seeing Kevin’s face smiling back at me. {Brooke}
…My last basketball game. I played my heart out, really gave it my all & my coach took me out of the game. As I walked back to the bench the crowd stood & clapped for me. {Kevin}
…Our first big vacation for our 3rd wedding anniversary to Vancouver. Seeing the Evergreen trees and driving along the Olympic Peninsula. Ferry rides. Delicious food. We felt free. {Brooke}
We store these moments in our little suitcase & when we’re 80 they’ll still be with us to pull out & think about to make us smile.
Unfortunately, the seemingly bad milestones tend to make their way into our suitcases too & there’s nothing we can do about it.
One particular milestone for us as a couple set in motion what’s become a now 3+ year struggle. Like most couples we decided to take the journey into parenthood, but what we didn’t realize is that journeying into parenthood cannot be controlled by a road map, an itemized schedule of when things should happen, or even in the ways most expect it to happen.
What I thought about when I envisioned myself getting pregnant: Having a pregnant belly. The feeling of little feet kicking my bladder. Listening to a heartbeat flutter & seeing a sonogram for the first time. Requesting weird food cravings to Kevin in the middle of the night. Having 9 months to design a nursery. Having a baby with Kevin's perfectly blue eyes.
What I didn’t think about when I envisioned myself getting pregnant: NOT getting pregnant. Peeing on sticks & taking my temperature every morning before I got out of bed for a year. Reading blogs about ‘magic foods’ to increase fertility. Bloodwork, bloodwork & even more bloodwork. (I’m deathly afraid of needles!) Taking medicines that made me nauseous, irritable & emotional. Talking to complete strangers about every most intimate detail of my married life.
As with anything else you want in life, when you’re told you can’t have it, you want for it that much more. The prospect that what you’ve been working for will no longer come to fruition can be devastating. After a year of testing, poking & prodding we were both diagnosed infertile with a less than 1% chance of having children of our own. We were in shock. How could this be? No one else in our family has infertility issues. Have we done something wrong? Are we not supposed to be parents? The questions were endless & our grief was relentless.
When we prayed for test results, we prayed that it would be a ‘team’ problem. There would be no blame, no finger-pointing & I’m proud to say that never happened between us. For whatever reason (a reason we’re just now seeing come into detail) God stitched us together in mind for each other. Our fertility, or lack thereof, was just as God designed it to be. We were a pair in more ways than one.
When we prayed for test results, we prayed that it would be a ‘team’ problem. There would be no blame, no finger-pointing & I’m proud to say that never happened between us. For whatever reason (a reason we’re just now seeing come into detail) God stitched us together in mind for each other. Our fertility, or lack thereof, was just as God designed it to be. We were a pair in more ways than one.
The week we received our diagnosis we took a trip to see friends in Salt Lake City & then toured Utah & Arizona. We camped at the Grand Canyon, Kevin baptized himself at Zion National Park & we saw magnificent works of creation at Arches National Park. It was the most beautiful distraction we could’ve given ourselves. I will always remember that week together where we didn’t have to worry about the future. We didn’t have to talk to anyone if we didn’t want to. We were able to be silent & put a hold on life.
Unfortunately, a month later my mom was diagnosed with cancer. (Remember when God says He never gives you any more than you can bear??? Sometimes I wonder.) We felt numb, inside & out. The house seemed quieter. Words didn’t seem necessary. It felt like the lights went out & we had been abandoned into darkness.
Fast forward to about 9 months later (with Mama Harris in remission - yea!)...God's certainly provided & revealed Himself to us in ways we could never imagine.
We've cycled through the stages of grief probably dozens of times & now comes the point of this blog: Are we accepting of our infertility? Yes. Are we happy about it? No. Do we still want to become parents? Heck yes.
We've cycled through the stages of grief probably dozens of times & now comes the point of this blog: Are we accepting of our infertility? Yes. Are we happy about it? No. Do we still want to become parents? Heck yes.
All this to say…
WE’RE ADOPTING A BABY!
Does my heart clench when I say that? Yes. Do I still feel sadness when I think about our infertility? Yes, that will never go away. Do we believe this is what God intended for our lives? Y-E-S.
We have no due date. We have no idea where our baby will come from, or what race he or she will be. We just know that someday in the (hopefully) near future we’ll experience another happy milestone to store away in our suitcase.
On a day where we received one of our earlier diagnoses, we had tickets to see Rosie Thomas at 12th & Porter downtown. After the shock of receiving such unexpected news, neither of us felt like going to a show. Even though we’d been looking forward to seeing Rosie after YEARS of loving her music, we almost considered staying home. Looking back, going to her show was what we needed on that day more than anything else. If you know us at all, you know the value music plays in our lives. Well, Rosie spoke to us that night. God used her to speak directly into our hearts & give us a gift so comforting, we look back on that night with such gratitude. The title of our blog was inspired from a song she recorded called ‘Sometimes Love’. There is a link to it below, but here are the lyrics for you to read:
Sometimes love's a paper tiger
That haunts you in your bed
Sometimes love's a two fist fighter
That lands you on your head
When it comes
Don't try to fight it
There's nothing you can do
'Cause Ii finds you when it does, and leaves you when it wants to
Sometimes love's a perfect poem
That words have never said
Sometimes love's a big disaster
That leaves you good as dead
When it comes
Don't try to fight it
There's nothing you can do
'Cause it finds you when it does, and leaves you when it wants to
So when I come
I'll come insisting
You hear the thing I say
Do not run
Do not resist me
Don't look the other way
We have time
We have tomorrow
We don't need reasons why
Now you have to decide
That haunts you in your bed
Sometimes love's a two fist fighter
That lands you on your head
When it comes
Don't try to fight it
There's nothing you can do
'Cause Ii finds you when it does, and leaves you when it wants to
Sometimes love's a perfect poem
That words have never said
Sometimes love's a big disaster
That leaves you good as dead
When it comes
Don't try to fight it
There's nothing you can do
'Cause it finds you when it does, and leaves you when it wants to
So when I come
I'll come insisting
You hear the thing I say
Do not run
Do not resist me
Don't look the other way
We have time
We have tomorrow
We don't need reasons why
Now you have to decide
Check our more of Rosie’s music (www.rosiethomas.com) because she is just a wonderful musician & an even more wonderful human being.
Many thanks go out to our family & friends who have supported this journey because we haven’t always been easy to be around & we realize that. We believe that this new adventure we are embarking on is really exciting & our hope is that you’ll experience it with us.
Please pray for the journey ahead! Pray for our future birthmom, because she will be facing a lot of decisions, obstacles & fears in the near future. We desire for her to be at total peace in making one of the most important decisions of her life.
Subscribe to our blog & follow along on our amazing, scary, stressful, yet totally fulfilling adventure. Here's to lots of new memories to store in our suitcases!
Please pray for the journey ahead! Pray for our future birthmom, because she will be facing a lot of decisions, obstacles & fears in the near future. We desire for her to be at total peace in making one of the most important decisions of her life.
Subscribe to our blog & follow along on our amazing, scary, stressful, yet totally fulfilling adventure. Here's to lots of new memories to store in our suitcases!
Thank you to our dear friends Stef Atkinson (photo), Jaye Haynes (makeup) & Lauren Kaufman (graphic design) for your help with our super cute announcement postcard!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)