One Little Lost Lamb, Here I Am || My Brother

When we were little, Brody routinely sang a song we so often heard at church,
"There were ni-tee-and niiiiaaahhh (99), but he left the fold to find
one little lost lamb and here I am!"
Ironically, that song was sang by a man who ended up pouring his heart and soul into helping Brody when he found himself indeed powerfully overcome, despite/but not powerless to the grace God had given him early on in his life, to a world of addiction.

Brody became that little lost lamb.  Not lost in the sense of unsaved, lost in a sense of-powerless to the hold of a sin he'd struggled with for a long time.  I think we would be lying if we said that many of us, as Christians, don't suffer from the hold of sin in one area or another in our lives.
More on that later.

The thing I just can't shake...
I lost my childhood best friend 3 weeks ago.

My little brother is gone.

I will never see him in this life again.

It's something I can't wrap my mind around.

Words leave me, but that doesn't mean they don't come in swirls and fragments with sadness that clouds my thoughts of what I had always imagined the future ahead would hold.  Heaven has always seemed incomprehensible to me.  Like, I know it's real, I just can't comprehend it-I've never had to imagine my brother there.  I have an aunt and papaw-but, my brother?  I never dreamed this is how it would end.  Eternity is something I have a hard time understanding.  When something is gone "forever" as in the time we speak of on earth, I draw a mental blank.

Until eternity begins, for the whole world/or myself, however God has it planned, I'll never see my brother again.  You're in my head now as I write, so you can see how I can't comprehend that.

Literally, everyday.  Every night...it comes to me.
Brody is gone.

Memories and thoughts are flooding my mind, so I just need to tell my story.

My mom has a different one.  A different view.  As do my sister and dad in dealing with this.  But this is how it happened for me.

My whole life, up until 10 years ago, began and ended with my immediate family.

My brother, my sister, my mom and myself.  My dad has always been stand offish, but him, too.

We did everything together.  Brody, and Clancy, when she came along, they've always been my side until I was basically 18 years old.  We were a close, super tight-knit family.

As kids, my earliest memories of Brody were when he would always agree with everything I would say: "You're right, Caca!"  I conned him in to playing our version of house "Dickey and Gina" (my great aunt and uncle who had four boys) in exchange for me agreeing to "cowboys."  We walked (or should I say I walked) through the blizzard of 1993 to spend the night with our nana and papa and play in the snow.  My nana even has a tape where I was complaining about how daddy carried Brody but made me walk in the snow that was taller than I was.😂  We sang in the church choir.  Jumped in leaf piles.  Roller bladed in the basement and rode our battery powered cars around the house.  We played Legend of the Hidden Temple on my mom's work out equipment with orange slices in our mouthes as mouth pieces.  We played in our big sand pile and went sledding down our big hill/or had daddy pull us behind the tractor on a good snow day.  Dressed up for Halloween and Trick or treated.  Woke up listening for Rudolphs hoof sounds on our roof each Christmas and waking our mom up 32,232 times before we finally fell asleep so Santa could actually pay us a visit.  One Christmas Brody woke up saying, "He came anyway!  He came anyway!"because he struggled the picking of the nose battle (one he hadn't ever been able to give up, much to Santa's dismay).  When my mom and dad finally kicked us out of their room, I slept in his bedroom because his room was closer to my mom and dads.

We always loved to hide and play spy.  We rode the school bus together and walked up our long driveway (but on rainy days, if we were lucky, Nana would be waiting to drive us to the top with a frosty in hand).  We played with our cousins (the majority of whom were girls-but Brody didn't care.  He did what ever we asked him to).  We fought like cats and dogs, until Clancy came along, and then Brody decided she was more fun to aggravate.  I was also pretty aggressive when he came after me.  I know what youre thinking...but it's true🤪. We stayed with nana and papa every evening after school when my mom started to work.  We would eat Nutter. Butters and while I watched Growing Pains & Brotherly Love , Brody would sneak the calculator into their bathroom and do his math homework there so she wouldn't catch him cheating.  You could find us at Sweetgum Baptist Church every Sunday morning, evening and Wednesday night.  We loved a good meal of hamburger helper and our favorite thing to do outside was to jump on the trampoline off our brick wall (super dangerous-that's my dad's ideas for you...).  We hated Buddy Holly because Clancy would scream if we weren't listening to him, so to pass time we took turns letting her bite our fingers in the back seat and seen who could stand her tight grip the longest. Rode four wheelers (he would tell you I blew it up every time I rode it, and he was right).  As we got older, we went on double dates.  We tubed at the lake-one time his friend even gave me a black eye when my dad threw us all off.   We've (all three of us siblings) quoted "Heavy Weights" and "Home Alone" all year long every year of our lives and laughed at stupid stuff that no one would understand.  He was my homecoming escort as soon as he entered high school, two years in a row-because no one else did the job better than him.  He and my husband/then boyfriend, Cade, loved impersonating everyone and again-with the movie and tv quotes.  And let's not start on their love of music.   They drug me to the most awful head banging concert in Asheville one night, leaving me with the most terrible head ache I've probably ever had.  But I enjoyed being with them.

Then, it seems like once he graduated high school, and after I got married, something changed.  Brody was just a normal happy teenage guy, but for whatever reason, he started straying.  Drugs came in to his life.  It's a big problem everywhere I know, but it seems especially tragic in our small hometown.  He was never a person to do something lightly.  He loved motorcycles, guitars, drums, messing with automobiles.  He was the best at those things because he put every ounce of his being into things he loved.  And that's what he began to do with drugs.  Soon after, we found him distancing himself from family.  His true friends.  It was up until the last year of his life...when it came to the point that I didn't see him at Thanksgiving, Christmas, or his birthday.  They had taken over.  I don't know why I didn't recognize it.

I think I tried to block out this Brody.  That is the only way I knew to cope.  He would call or text every now and then to check on the boys...and it was near possible to keep up with him these days because he never had the same phone number.  I was far from the situation except when I seen my mother, and then, when I seen what the situation was doing to her...doing to our family- resentment built in me.  She wasn't the same.  She couldn't function anymore because of the heartbreak and worry she felt.  She couldn't be a part of my life like I wanted her to be because she threw her whole self into trying to help him and participating in Celebrate Recovery which she helped start at our local church because of him.  She was then pulled in to helping anyone who needed her.  Not only that, but, for the past 10 years, I've not had the blessing to experience 100% having a brother.  The brother who was my best friend for so much of my life, no longer existed.

While my sister, mom, Nana, Cade and I, all feared that something like this one one day happen-you don't REALLY think it's every going to happen.
And then it does.  It still isn't real.

We were driving down the road on May 4, somewhere around 10 am and Cade called.  I had just picked up Cam's food and work for the week from the school (you know, quarantine life), we'd stopped to get coffee, and run one more errand-and in that moment, our whole world changed with 2 words.
It's Brody.

No other words need to be spoken.
We knew.
Our worst fears had come true.

Someone that Brody trusted and lived with at the time called me at the end of January upon his request.  I won't say all that was said in this conversation, but, I could tell he was tired.  I could tell he wanted to give up and that he was unhappy.  He was tired of his current state.  As I talked to him, I tried to encourage him to look to God for strength and that it was possible for him to start a new life.  I always tried to do this when God nudged my heart through books, messages, texts, etc , but it never seemed to do any good and I'll be honest-it was disheartening.

We as a family, the situation was exhausting and it seemed hopeless going on ten years.

I guess that was the last time I talked to him.
That's how distant he had become.

Do I have regrets?  Yes.  There is always something you could have done for someone else.
If you have ever had experience with a person on drugs you know this brings an additional set of challenges that feel almost impossible to maneuver.  These powerful distractions are undoubtedly one of Satan's most powerful tools to destroy.

But I do know this.  I always told him I loved him and gave him a hug.
A lot of times I didn't have anything else to say, and the last couple of times he didn't have anything to say to me.  It was such an incredibly sad situation.

Drugs have destroyed so many of our lives.  They destroy homes.  Families.  Relationships.  Churches.  Communities.  And ultimately, as I said, lives.
Heart wrenching pain that is unexplainable.  Avoidable.  Not what God had planned for these individuals in their life.  Lives that are cut short solely because of the hold of things that destroy.

I find comfort in Brody's testimony.
When he was a young boy, when September 11th happened, he called on my mom to pray with him over his salvation.  Time went on and so did we.  Things changed.  As Brody struggled, numerous people inquired about his salvation, and he assured them he was saved, but he knew he was living wrong.  In jail, he was given a bible and in that bible my mom found peace after his death.   God provided this peace with the notes Brody had written in this bible.

It brought to mind the verse:
So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Revelation 3:16
Brody often didn't even like the idea of going to church when he was deliberately in the addiction.  I think that showed his fear of God.  Though, not the typical story of recovery, or what many would consider "noble" (but are any of us?)  his sin required death to allow Christ to win his battle.
That should be a message to us all of us in that, we can definitely shorten our days with how we choose to live out the time God has blessed us with.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

A family friend familiar with these types of situations shared, "Drugs don't change the heart, but they do change the mind."  I don't think I could have said it better myself.

In no way do I say this to gain sympathy or to say poor pitiful me...
That's why I am writing on my blog.  I worry about that when I post anything to social media.
You all know my struggle with worry.
Very few people read these posts and it's been my way of sharing what's on my heart for several years now.  I say this because maybe you know of someone who has taken this path, may be playing around with things they shouldn't, or think that could never happen to me or my family...but, oh how it could.  We never thought it would be us either.

I want to put our memory of Brody and the life that could have been in to something positive.  If you know of anything, or can give me some ideas of ways to help families or people in the shoes of drug addiction-especially prayer, please don't hesitate to reach out to me...
cassidypadams3@gmail.com

I've not been able to sleep since it happened.
When I can't sleep, I've come here to write.  This post is all over the place, but I hope it makes sense and maybe even helps someone who may be struggling with the loss of a loved one or another who can relate to what effect drugs can have on not just one person, but an entire family, an entire church family who pour their prayer life into one of theirs & the outcome isn't what is hoped for.

And while I do have to live life, don't think for one second I've forgotten my brother.
I won't lie, I feel guilt for smiling, laughing, joking, doing fun things.  It feels like we are forgetting him.  But, I have to live each day of my life as if it were MY last.  I have three kids and a wonderful husband with whom I want to make the best memories with.  No matter what life brings, I have to keep going for them.  And for our families.

This is my temporary home.  Heaven is my destination.
I pray I can live my life to the fullest for Christ as we near that day.

While my brother may have been a little lost lamb on this earth, our Heavenly Father left the fold to find him.  And on May 4th, 2020, I think He knew it was time to bring Him home.  Home to a place free from the dangers he knew this little lamb couldn't escape❤️
No better place to be, then in the arms of the Great Shepherd.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.  He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Psalms 23