How it all Started

I don't know of a better place to start than at the beginning... so I'll just start there!

How it All Started
God started writing Jarred and my love story back in August of 2004. I had just started school at Reinhardt College when I met him. We were both music majors and had almost every single class together. A couple of weeks into the school year, we were both placed in the same professor's office for the work study program and both became active in the same music and ministry organizations on campus. Needless to say, we ended up spending a lot of time together. Little did we know that a lifelong journey was beginning! And that's not just a figure of speech - LITTLE DID WE KNOW. We could not stand each other!!! It's funny to think about it now, but honestly, we were "frienemies" for 6 years before we ever started dating. Everyone around us could see how great we were together, but we were totally blind to it. Even the professor we worked for told us on separate occasions that we were made for each other. My family was also very vocal with their opinions about my "friend", and before long Jarred started making regular appearances at my house for lunch on Sunday afternoons and playing piano for my family to sing. None the less, we kept the love/hate relationship going till we left Reinhardt. 
      We ended up losing touch for over a year. It was actually the unexpected death of the professor we had worked for that reconnected us. Almost comically, we ended up being seated next to each other at her funeral - the lady who told us we'd end up together got the last laugh after all! After the funeral, we parted ways, and it was another year before out of the blue, Jarred started calling me. However, I was still stubborn and ignored his calls for over 3 months! Eventually, his persistence won, and I answered. He came over and had dinner with me and my family, and that was it - the rest is history. We were married 9 months later on June 12, 2010. Looking back on our relationship, it is obvious that God wrote our love story and brought us together - I'm so thankful He did!
 

  
Fast Forward to Today... 
Jarred and I have been happily married for 5 years. God has blessed us way more than we deserve with a beautiful home, fantastic church, and jobs that we love. Jarred is working at his dream job - teaching chorus at his alma mater. He told me when we were at Reinhardt that his dream was to teach at his old high school, and God was so good to Jarred - that was his first job after college, and he has been there almost 8 years! God also gave me the perfect job. I am the Ministry Assistant at our church, and I really do absolutely love it!

The God-Given Desire   

Since Jarred and I started dating, we have consistently talked about our desire for children. Even when asked as a little girl what I wanted to be when I grew up - my response was always "a mommy". Similarly, Jarred has always had a strong yearning for a family and to be a father. God has given us that shared desire for a family, and we truly believe He will grant us the desire of our heart, in His time, because it's a desire placed there by Him. The key though (and sometimes the struggle) is that while we wait, we delight in Him (Psalm 37:4)! To be clear and more specific, our desire is to have children and raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4) - To teach them to love the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30) and give their lives to Him as a vessel He can use for His glory! I get so excited just typing it!!! That's what I'm passionate about - that's the heritage of my life (Psalm 127:3).

Infertility
We started trying to get pregnant in December of 2011 but were unsuccessful. We tried for a year on our own, and then we started seeing an infertility specialist in 2012. After multiple tests, it was determined that even though complications were present, it was possible for Jarred and I to have biological children. We were thrilled! However, after another two years of trying and treatments, we were still unsuccessful in conceiving. After much prayer, we decided to stop treatments and trust the Lord with our desire for children. It took some soul searching, but both of us realized that we are not the givers of life - God is (Psalm 36:9).
     
Adoption
We have been talking about adoption since before we married, but we never had peace about it at the same time. We know God has allowed or ordained our struggle with infertility, and we've spent the last year prayerfully considering if God was calling us to adoption. This fall it has become increasingly clear that one of the reasons we've struggled with infertility is because there is a child out there who needs a family, and a strong love and desire for that child has begun to grow in our hearts. For me, some of the confirmation came about a month ago when the Lord spoke to me so clearly during a Bible Study about the armor of God. We were learning about the shield of faith, and something in me clicked! My mind had acknowledged it, but I had never actually applied faith. For the first time in my life, I realized that FAITH IS AN ACTION - it's not just belief, it's what we DO because of our belief. Hebrews 11:1 defines faith like this: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen". James 2:26 says this about faith: "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also". We had belief that God would give us a family, but what evidence had we presented to prove that we believed it? What work had we done to indicate any kind of substance of hope? It was time to put some feet on our faith! We are overjoyed and fearful at the same time to start this adoption journey, but similar to the God-given desire for children, we believe God has called us to adoption, and because we are surrendered to His leadership for our family, we know He will provide emotionally and financially for this journey.

And it Begins
So here we are... at the starting line of our adoption process. We  requested information from several resources including: an adoption agency, DFACS, and an adoption consulting company back in March as we were praying for direction. Again, God faithfully provided confirmation and affirmed our initial thoughts about pursuing adoption with Faithful Adoption Consultants (FAC). We contacted them a couple of weeks ago and set up a conference call. To be honest, I had let fear convince me that the consultant would laugh at us and tell us to call back when we had $30k, but that's not what happened. We were encouraged and excited when we hung up the phone. FAC sent us an application and walked us through the process and timeline. I think it finally started to sink in for Jarred and me that THIS COULD ACTUALLY HAPPEN! I was overcome with joy and gratitude - It almost felt like I had just found out I was pregnant. So as that wave of emotion is still rushing over us, we've started to look at the application and realize there are a lot of things we need to talk about as we proceed. The application is full of things we really hadn't considered (or thought it was to early in the process to consider). Our goal is to prayerfully answer these questions and trust God to write our adoption story. I've been researching fundraisers and blogs to see what's next and get an idea of what to expect, and that has led to the creation of this blog. I, like the writers of the other blogs I've been reading, hope that my blog will be an encouragement to someone else, and also be a testament to the goodness and faithfulness of Christ throughout this journey. Please pray for us as we endeavor to honor and glorify God through this adoption and be used by Him in the life of our baby and birth mother. We pray He will use this adoption to show us and those we come in contact with, a clear picture of the gospel - After all, we as believers in Christ, are adopted sons and daughters of God (Romans 8:14-17).