Well, well, well…turning thirty three will be here tomorrow.  I don’t mind growing older as long as I grow wiser.  This year has provided me some wisdom…to say the least!  I enter thirty three a different woman.  When I turned thirty two, I had no idea I was infertile.  When  I turned thirty two, I felt tired, but thought I was healthier than ever.  I had no idea I had an autoimmune disease or the effects of its presence on my body.  I considered myself wise at thirty two, but I had no idea!

Recently, I was beginning to feel bitter and uncertain about our path of infertility.  Looking around, so much emphasis is placed on biological genes.  Our world is designed to say things like, “She looks just like you.” “You are tall like your daddy.” “I know your dad so you must be smart”  I have said all these things all my life and I say them everyday in my classroom.  I began to fear if the adoption would fill the hole in my heart or if I was reaching to fix a problem that cannot be fixed.  I began to question if this was God’s plan or if we were making it His plan.  I prayed about it and talked about it, but the emptiness was still there.

I think God allowed me to listen for a while and hear only silence.  Then recently-He spoke.  A prayer warrior out of the blue, messaged me encouragement.  I stumbled upon the book of James which spoke of adoption, perseverance, and patience.  Then we were contacted by Marriage Today to film the story of healing in our marriage for their national banquet.  I had contacted them over a year ago to share how their ministry helped in healing our broken marriage.  In 2011, they were not interested.  In March of 2012, they contacted me to do the story and we were not interested since we were still struggling with our infertility.  Flash forward to October 2012 and the time is perfect.

We are honored and anxious to share our story with the nation of how we were 60 days away from being divorced when God began to change our hearts.  It is weird to share your biggest failure with the world, but we know our story will impact other couples as much as it has impacted us.  Anyone in our close circle will know we appeared finished.  Thankfully, God was able to speak to two broken hearts and the key is: we listened and obeyed.  We are here today because of that obedience and because of Marriage Today’s resources of how to start over.  Our marriage is not like what it was…it is twenty times better.  It needed to be for us to endure the trials we have just conquered.  Many marriages would break under the stress we endured, but ours thrived.  We grew stronger and closer as we leaned on God’s promises that He was not done with us yet.

Our child will benefit from our transformation and the legacy of a loving marriage that we will leave behind.  We are witnesses that mercy and grace can make anything new and forgiveness is powerful.  We could not have been the couple we are today without that season of growing.  It was a harsh season, but just a season and seasons change!

The good news is: I am so thankful for our renewed marriage.  We are far from perfect, but a much better example of Christ’s love than years before this trial.  I will take the bad first three years to get to the amazing last three.  Little did we know how much we needed to be knocked down to be built back up.  Thankful we did not give in when it hurt most.  We are a miracle that we are still together and we believe firmly this was all part of His plan to prepare us for this journey we are on today.