Below is a devotion Trey shared at the last Upward basketball game this season.

Hello, my name is Trey, I am a member here at Beech Haven, and I want to tell you about my family.


This is my first year as an upward parent. My daughter is a member of the Blue Diamonds cheerleading squad, and has done a great job this year. When her mother and I divorced in 2005, I was not close to God. I had been raised in a Christian home, but had grown away over the years. After the divorce, I made a list of the things I wanted to do to improve myself, and number one was to get back to church and get closer to God.


After about 9 months, I met a wonderful young woman who introduced me to this church, and in November of 2007, Cheri and I were married. Like many couples, we decided that we wanted to have children, and after a short time, discovered we were expecting a son. On December 28, 2008, our son Luke was born. Unfortunately, Luke was not due until April, and was born too early. He died about 20 minutes after he was born. There is no pain like the death of a child...there is also probably nothing that brings about as much anger towards God as that.


Cheri and I realized quickly that we could not handle our grief and agony alone. Of course our family stepped in to comfort us. We have great families. But when something like this happens, your family is grieving just as much as you are. So, our extended family, our church family, stepped in. And they were great, doing really whatever needed to be done. Meals, visits, prayer, they all provided comfort, but still we needed more than what they could give. On the next level, we heard from friends of friends....people we had never really known or carried on conversations with....who had been thru similar situations and recommended books or blogs to read, or people to talk to.


But still we needed more.....we needed God. And as angry as we were with him, we had known all along that we needed him. The afternoon Luke died, as hurt as we were....we prayed. We found comfort in Romans 8:28. I prayed for the strength to support Cheri as I knew the hurt she was feeling.


And then we prayed. We prayed for God to get us thru our grief, and to show us what we needed to do. We prayed for God to hold our marriage strong, and spare us from the stress that the death of a child puts on a marriage.


For a while Cheri had decided that we would not have children. She did not want to take the chance of going thru this pain again, but again thru prayer, she decided that she did want children....so we prayed that God would bless us with another child, and after just a few weeks, I came home from work to see Cheri holding a pregnancy test showing positive, and then God went to work again.


He delivered us to a new doctor, who had been thru similar pain, and was willing to go the extra mile to insure the health of our unborn child. From day one, he assured us that this time we would walk out of the hospital with a baby.....


and on November 16th, our prayers were answered. I would now like to introduce you to my wife Cheri and in her arms is our daughter Brooke.....God's gift to us for never giving up on him, and never letting our anger and despair win.


I told Cheri one day that I don't know where I would have been had I lost a child and not been in a relationship with God, and a member of a loving, supporting church. Whenever you have something that seems so wrong in your life, remember that God will not test you with more than you can handle. We remember that he too had a son die, the greatest son who ever lived, Jesus Christ, but thru death, he saved us all who put our faith in Him.

Back to Work

I went back to work on the 15th. It has been hard since I was so used to being with Brooke all the time, but I'm adjusting. The first week I went to see her everyday during my lunch break. The second week I only went a couple of times. I will continue to visit with her, but will try to only go a couple of times during the week.

Brooke has had no problems at all adjusting. She likes her primary caregiver. Her primary caregiver told me that Brooke is her best baby. That made my day. I also love picking Brooke up in the afternoon. She almost always smiles real big when she sees me. One day she even squealed with excitement when I greeted her.

Brooke is still sleeping through the night and going to bed earlier at night now. She's usually asleep by 8:30. I have to wake her up at 6:45 most mornings. She never wakes up in the middle of the night. I am so thankful she's a good sleeper and pray she stays that way.

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

All of your girls love you so very much. Thank you for being a wonderful husband and father. We are so thankful for all that you do for us.



I know I do not tell you enough how much I appreciate you. I love you and look forward to many more birthdays with you!

Wiggle Worm

I love this picture. Brooke has done this a couple of times now. I'll check on her early in the morning and she has managed to wiggle into this position.




I'll be going back to work in a couple of weeks. It is going to be so hard to leave Brooke. I enjoy being with her so much.

8 weeks

Last week, Brooke celebrated her 8th week of life by moving into her own room. Overall, it has been a pretty easy transition for her. I must admit it has been much harder for me. Since we came home from the hospital, her bassinett has been right beside my side of the bed. I loved being able to reach over and touch her or look at her at night. She is growing so fast, and I know she will soon be too big for her bassinett. So it is time to get her used to her own room.

We tried to move Brooke to her crib at 6 weeks, but she didn't like it. She cried when we put her down for the night. I convinced Trey that she wasn't ready (neither was I), and I got two more weeks with her beside me in our room. Last week, we decided to move the bassinett into her room and let her sleep in it to get her used to the room first. She's doing great. We had a couple of nights with a little bit of crying when we first put her down, but it usually only last 5-10 minutes. She is still sleeping through the night.

This week we have mostly put her down in the crib. Most nights she is wide awake when I put her down. She'll just lay in her crib and look around. She hasn't been crying which is a relief to me, but I still cannot fall asleep until I know she is asleep.

It is so sad that Brooke is almost too big for her bassinett. My baby girl is growing so quickly. At her two month appointment today, we found out that she now weighs 12 lbs 6 oz and is 22 inches long. She is such a sweet baby and I'm so thankful that God has blessed our lives with her.

Baby's first Christmas

This is a little late, but I want to write a little something about Brooke's first Christmas. Brooke made her first trip to Americus the weekend before Christmas. We only spent one night in Americus and it was quite a night. Brooke decided to stay up ALL night which meant her mommy was also up all night. Brooke and I ended up sleeping most of Sunday morning, but she finally made her debut at the family Christmas celebration around noon.




Brooke was very alert and wide awake. She enjoyed playing with her cousins and aunt. She also met her great grandmother, Franny. Franny loved holding Brooke and commented on how Brooke is such a pretty baby.



We returned home on Sunday night with a sleepy baby. I was worried she'd be off schedule for a few days, but she ended up sleeping through the night. Amazingly, Brooke started sleeping throught the night around 5 1/2 weeks.



On Christmas Eve, Trey and I took Brooke to church.



She slept through the service which we expected. After the service, we went to the Dickersons for the traditional lasagna dinner. We has a great time with my adopted family. We all received our Christmas Eve PJs from Cynthia. Trey especially enjoyed his Pac-Man PJs which included a hat.



Brooke's sister spent part of Christmas day with us. Santa visited both girls. Brooke's big gifts from Santa were a baby Elmo and a play mat. The Dickersons gave Brooke a bumbo. We had the Dickersons over for dinner on Christmas night. Overall, we had a great first Christmas with our baby girl.

Wordless Wednesday