This might seem somber...

but this is the obituary we had in the paper in Brandon's mom's hometown, it should be in Columbus any day (it was supposed to be Saturday...) and it should be in Lexington soon.  One exciting part, in my opinion, is at the end...

 Briar Allen Whitis was born into the arms of Jesus at 3:38 a.m. on Sept. 13, 2010.  
He is survived by his proud parents Brooke and B, of Columbus, Ga.; grandparents, Calvin and Jenny , of Lexington, and H.B. “Pete” and Terry Wollison, of Lexington; and an uncle and aunt, Jerad and Alicia , of Brandon, Fla.

In lieu of flowers please make memorials to the Briar’s Brother Adoption Fund at any Wachovia Bank.

Now I don't say this to solicit money or try to get people to give to us for selfish gain, but at the same time, I tell you about it because we are hoping Briar's life will be a catalyst to another life....a life from another country.  Although Briar's life wasn't intended to be here on this earth, we believe that we are supposed to adopt a little boy from Africa....Ethiopia to be specific. Although with everything in our hearts we wish we still had him here...we feel like we can understand that when we dream of his future on this earth, it was never the way the Lord intended it.

Psalm 139 says that, " your eyes saw my unformed body.  All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. "  You can talk theology with me all you want, but I believe that the Lord had a special plan for his SHORT life....

We don't know when the Lord will allow us to do adopt.  We think we might receive some sort of life insurance for sweet B's life.  We recently found this out from another friend who lost their child to stillbirth (and has been an incredible support to us).  We plan on putting this money directly into Briar's Brother adoption fund. We already put the money from the garage sale (a couple months ago) in there. We are just praying about the right time to start the adoption, because we will also try to have another child naturally (or two or three...), but wouldn't it be amazing for our natural born child and adopted child to be close in age? We would love for them to be close!

One week before Briar was born

Anyway....as you read the obituary, just know that our heart behind the fund is to bring home a son from Ethiopia someday.  We hope this day will be in the next year or two.  We know the Lord will guide our timeline. We know Brandon needs to be around for a homestudy, etc....and we know he won't be deploying for quite a while....so maybe this is the right timing.....as for now, we are just enjoying thinking of Briar and the time we had with him, and the great purposes that his life on this earth had...in the six hours we had with him.  We were able to see the pictures that our sweet (amazing,incredible, talented, beautiful,stupendous,indescribable) friend Jess took for us in the hospital.  I will eventually share a couple of them that show what sweet moments we had in the hospital.  Some of these pictures will stay with just our family, as the memories made with Briar are too precious for you to understand unless you were there.  It was magical, the time with him, and I think everyone that was there would agree. Putting some of the pictures on the blog wouldn't do those moments justice...

As we think about Briar and his death, we think about new life in his brother that will come...and his future siblings...and we think about the story of Jesus and how life was able to come out of his death.  I pray that you see a life here....a life lived in faith...and you know that it is truly the thing that has carried us and will carry us through this pain.  It has been a week today since I met my son.  But I feel so blessed to have known him.  I can tell you that I DO NOT have the strength to walk this journey. Nor does my husband. Nor do my friends. Nor does my family.  But the Lord does...and so he walks the journey and I just hold on...