Thank you Tara and Kevin Bové for sharing your story. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28

Tara: I don’t approach life with too many expectations. We knew in advance that there were going to be trials that we would walk through, but I never imagined what we actually have been through.

Kevin: I brought two teenagers into the marriage and she brought Isabella into the marriage and Isabella was four years old. And within three years we had the twins.

Tara: When my first husband passed away, it was after Kevin and I were already married and Isabella was nine years old. And that was a significant turning point for her. That was a really hard time.

Kevin: She wasn’t adjusting well to it, and we could see that she needed help, but she was very resistant. We were on a six year journey, trying to help Isabella with what we learned was addiction. Isabella met a young man named Ricky and something changed.

Tara: She was 19. She came over and she told us that she was expecting a baby.

Kevin: And we were ecstatic. I was so happy because Ricky said, “We’re having this baby.” And Isabella said, “Yeah we’re having this baby.”

Tara: I expected things to be challenging and I knew that we were going to have to come alongside them. They were starting to map out their future. What were things going to look like? It wasn’t long after that announcement, that Ricky came to us and said that he wanted to ask Isabella to marry her. What we never could have expected are the events that came after that.

Kevin: One morning at work, I received a phone call from Isabella and she was hysterical on the other line. And she was able to get the words out, “Dad, Ricky is dead. Ricky’s died.” Tara: She did give birth in August. And here came Anabella into our world, extremely healthy. Isabella was able to care for her and she was making plans for, “Okay, what am I going to do? What’s life going to look like now? It’s going to look very, very different. I’m a young mom and I’m a widow.” It had been about two months since Anabella was born and I came home from work one evening and Isabella wasn’t at the house and she should have been. And it was the worst day of any mother’s life, when we learned that she had passed away.

Kevin: Tara came home and she walked through that door and took the baby from me. And I knew that at that moment, she had transitioned to being the baby’s mother. I pleaded with God for help so that I could be a good leader, to be a good father, to be a good husband. Just days after when Isabella died, we were served with papers.

Tara: We had barely had our memorial service for Isabella.

Kevin: Isabella’s deceased husband, his father, who was living in California, sued us for sole custody of the baby.

Tara: It’s hard when something like this happens in one’s life to not question God. And that’s the biggest thing that I’ve had to battle, was to stop asking God why and trusting him.

Kevin: We were instantly thrown into a nine month legal battle, which was very ugly.

Tara: We knew that what we believed, what was in the best interest of Anabella was for her to be raised in a solid, intact family. And we just kept turning to God, over and over again, praying that he would allow us to become her adoptive parents so that we could make the choices for her and raise her. The party that began the suit against us unexpectedly told us that they were dropping their suit against us, nine months later.

Kevin: Well, I was in shock and disbelief. And when it finally set in on Tara, Tara began sobbing. We knew instantly, it was God. God knew what we needed. And he blessed us with a beautiful, happy, engaging, wonderful human being that we call our daughter. In all things God works for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. We relied on that. We strongly relied on that and we relied on one word in particular, it was the word, awe.

Tara: You cannot lose faith. You have to trust what God is doing and that is what carried us through, is we just kept turning back to him, not understanding it. It’s okay to not understand. It’s okay to tell him that you don’t understand, but don’t stop trusting him and having faith and how he’s going to work things out for good.