Our Story

We’ve been together since high school, got married in 1997 when I graduated, and now have four children—Jacob, Bailey, Halle Grace, and John David. Our family has grown to include two incredible in-loves, Lauren and Brandon, and five beautiful grandchildren—Mason, Millie, River, Eden, and Rhett.

Our life together has been hard work: constantly moving, changing, chaotic, and unexpected. We’ve shared small-town life, country roots, big-city opportunities, and global adventures. We’ve experienced seasons of plenty and times when buying a gallon of milk felt impossible. Death was too close and too often in our young lives.

During the pandemic, we faced as much trauma and loss as we had in the forty years prior. Yet, in the midst of it all, there has been tremendous blessing—deep joy, restoration, and peace. Our hope now is to help others who have struggled and suffered to find the same healing we’ve found.

Once upon a time—because that’s how every good story begins—there were high-school sweethearts, age fourteen and sixteen. It started with a look in band class and spit-wads in algebra, and the rest is history.

Being married at eighteen and nineteen, with a baby in our first year, didn’t exactly set us up for success. Spiritually, our intimacy was under attack from the beginning. We grew up in a hard-working, “pick yourself up by the bootstraps” culture that valued effort but often missed the abundant life God offers. People were good at behaving well and looking fine on the outside, but few lived in true freedom on the inside. We always sensed there was something more—that we were created for something deeper.

Before 2010, life was hard. Joseph barely graduated from a Christian university in 2000 and began working in the tech industry shortly after. I entered physical therapy school, earning my doctorate in 2004, with baby number two arriving six months before graduation. Miscarriages and disappointments followed, and then baby number three was born in 2009. On the outside, things looked good. Inside, we were unraveling. Spiritually, we were suffocating.

In 2010, everything shifted. On the brink of collapse and feeling like he was failing in every area of life, Joseph surrendered during a church service, asking for prayer and admitting his brokenness. A friend introduced him to Wild at Heart by John Eldredge, and it changed everything. He devoured the audiobook and Scripture, and within a year attended a Wild at Heart Boot Camp in Colorado. That encounter with God marked the beginning of our family’s awakening. After two more miscarriages, God blessed us with our “bonus baby,” John David, in 2013.

In 2014, we moved to Virginia as I pursued an academic career. That season brought both suffering and growth. Unable to sell our home in Arkansas and struggling to find work, we spent a year living in the basement of a colleague’s house, then moved into a farmhouse from the late 1800s that we lived in and restored simultaneously. There, we opened our home to college students, hosting “Dinner and Devos” nights that filled our table and our hearts.

Virginia was a time of challenge, adventure, breakdown, and breakthrough. In 2018, we returned to Arkansas, and by 2020, we were back on Joseph’s family farm.