May Mingle: Ryan- His Story, Your Story

When I was still debating colleges, Ryan was one of the recruiters that convinced me that Vennard was the place for me. Once I got to school, he went from recruiter to friend. Adam and Ryan were close friends so we would hang out with him at his apartment. After he got married to his lovely wife Sarah, we would go to their apartment and watch CSI with them, have dinner, and play games. Over the years with distance and time, we haven't stayed as close as we would have liked, but still consider them friends and enjoy getting together with them when we have the chance. I am so glad to have him as a guest blogger as I have enjoyed reading about he and Sarah's journey.

You can read his blog here.

His Story, Your Story

When I started the journey down fatherhood I was unsure where it would take me. I knew that we would have children however I was unaware of just how God would place together. What has been impactful for me over the last 3-5 years has been the way God uses people around us to make us into something that he wanted all along.

I should introduce myself a little more my name is Ryan, my wife and I will have been married for 10 years this month, I am a father to a little boy who will turn two this month as well. So you could say that May is one of the more busy months for us. We always knew we wanted a family however finding out that God had a different plan than ours can shake you and so in October of 2011 we started the adoption process with an excited heart knowing that God was all over our plan because it was his plan as well.

Flash forward to May of 2012. I remember the moment that I felt like a father. I was sitting down in a deli with my wife for dinner. Our son had to spend a few extra days in the NICU as he was a month early. As we sat there talking and eating I was thinking about what all had happened in the last three days. We met our son, met his birth family, and I had the chance to spend that whole day with my new family. As I sat there it all came over me that I was a father, after waiting and being unsure if it would ever happen I was there. As I stared at my sandwich I could feel the tears coming down my face. My wife looked up and saw that I was crying and told me to knock it off (jokingly) because she was going to start crying if I did not stop.

Many of you know the feeling, for some of you that feeling comes when you find out you are pregnant or that feeling comes when you first hold your child. I knew I was a father all of those three days but on that third day, having spent all morning just the three of us, that is when it really hit me.

Shortly after this I heard a father talking about how he started a birthday journal when his kids were infants. On each year of their birthday’s he writes a note in there about the last year that they had together. It is something that he has really enjoyed doing and now that his kids were teens he was looking forward to giving it to them when they either graduated or got married. I decided that this was something that I was going to start for my son.

One of the reasons that I wanted to do this for him is because I can be forgetful and not remember things how they really happened. This is also his story, it is a place that when he is older he can look back and find out who he is and how it all came about. How God showed his mercy and grace to us in picking the perfect child just for us. It was very emotional writing the first year of his journal as we had so much happened in our lives that I wanted to share with him. I find myself looking forward now this year as I get to write year two in his journal and also to start a new one in the next year as God guides us in our next round of adoption.

I challenge you to start something like this. It is really fun and it helps you create something that really means a lot for your child in the future. I can tell you that I wish my parents had done something like this for me when I was little. I might even start it now as we walk through the adoption process letting the child know the large and small things that happened on the journey to creating our family. What is your story that is waiting to be told?