It's a flutter in my heart.
A desire stronger than any I've experienced.
It's a need to protect, provide, and simply, love.
A love like the Father loves us.
It's a passion to study, to grow.
And a heart to learn, and pray.
It's taking risks.
A trust so deep, faith abounds.
It's asking God to break our hearts for what breaks His.
He provides.
Colin lived in Washington. I lived in Wisconsin. We connected online through Christian Cafe on December 11, 2003. And God slowly revealed to us our story that He planned before we were even born.
Through handwritten letters and nightly phone conversations, we 'knew'. After a few plane flights, Colin proposed on December 25, 2004. Colin moved to Wisconsin the summer of 2006 and we married January 6, 2007.
We've always been the best of friends. Together, we wanted nothing more than to start a family together. That desire grew over the years.
While infertility sometimes rips families apart, I think it brought us closer together. When it got rough for one of us, the other was there to provide comfort. When we hurt, we pray.
From the beginning of our relationship, God laid adoption on our hearts separately. Specifically, I always felt led to the orphans in Ethiopia.
In 2011, Colin said, "It is time."
I broke down, suddenly filled with a hope that infertility never gave me. I was never one to cry happy tears. Now I know them well. It's an emotion God reserves for extra-special moments.
It is difficult to express in words the need for us to adopt from Ethiopia. It is a love unexplainable. Our hearts are for the orphans, and that will never change.
We are head over heels in love with our adoption!
God arranged this beautiful love story. He is the master of it. He adopted us--now we are going to adopt for Him.
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:
A desire stronger than any I've experienced.
It's a need to protect, provide, and simply, love.
A love like the Father loves us.
It's a passion to study, to grow.
And a heart to learn, and pray.
It's taking risks.
A trust so deep, faith abounds.
It's asking God to break our hearts for what breaks His.
He provides.
Colin lived in Washington. I lived in Wisconsin. We connected online through Christian Cafe on December 11, 2003. And God slowly revealed to us our story that He planned before we were even born.
Through handwritten letters and nightly phone conversations, we 'knew'. After a few plane flights, Colin proposed on December 25, 2004. Colin moved to Wisconsin the summer of 2006 and we married January 6, 2007.
We've always been the best of friends. Together, we wanted nothing more than to start a family together. That desire grew over the years.
While infertility sometimes rips families apart, I think it brought us closer together. When it got rough for one of us, the other was there to provide comfort. When we hurt, we pray.
From the beginning of our relationship, God laid adoption on our hearts separately. Specifically, I always felt led to the orphans in Ethiopia.
In 2011, Colin said, "It is time."
I broke down, suddenly filled with a hope that infertility never gave me. I was never one to cry happy tears. Now I know them well. It's an emotion God reserves for extra-special moments.
It is difficult to express in words the need for us to adopt from Ethiopia. It is a love unexplainable. Our hearts are for the orphans, and that will never change.
We are head over heels in love with our adoption!
God arranged this beautiful love story. He is the master of it. He adopted us--now we are going to adopt for Him.
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:
to look after orphans and widows in their distress
and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."
~James 1:27
After 6 years of infertility, God blessed us with our first pregnancy. In spring 2013, I became pregnant with a little girl. God must have thought that 6 years was too long for us to wait, because He brought our baby into this world on September 17, 2013, at 26 weeks pregnant.
Caris Noelle is a MIRACLE.
Weighing 1 lb. 13.6 oz. at birth, she has filled us with insurmountable joy. After a 3 1/2 month stay in a NICU, she is now our testimony of strength and hope through Jesus Christ.
Welcome to my life of parenting a micropreemie while adopting from Ethiopia!
