I Appreciate All You Do Kevin...

Hello again. It is time for our next story. This story looks quite different from Andrea’s story (which is the goal), but it’s quite a joyful story. This woman is the perfect picture of what love and joy looks like. She is a beautiful example of how you don’t need an extravagant story to make an impact. She is beautiful inside and out, and you will get to see that for yourself… So here we go, on to our next story.

Her name is Malerie Huguley.

When I started Her Story, I knew I wanted Malerie to be a part of this. I’ve grown to really enjoy Malerie’s company, and knew she would be an amazing woman to interview, and she was. I asked Malerie several days prior to interview where she’d want to do her interview and she suggested either the park or her house, which those two places in itself represent a lot of who she is. She wanted the readers to really see her real life. We decided on her house, and it was the perfect spot to do this. When Emily and I arrived, Malerie was getting ready to help her daughter, Gia, with her homework. This is a part of her daily routine and we for sure didn’t want get in the way of that. We watched as Malerie assisted Gia with her homework, and truly got a glimpse into her life. As simple as it may have been, it was beautiful to see how much she loves and cares for her daughter, and it continues to show throughout our conversation. After Gia was finished with her homework, Malerie, Emily, and myself decided to go sit outside for a comfortable relaxed setting. And so we began our conversation.

As I start all discussions, I asked Malerie to tell me a little about herself and what she wants y’all to know about her. She stated, “Okay, well I don’t know!… I’m from Montgomery. I’ve grown up in Alabama my whole life. I love it. I went to Auburn, and that’s where I met some of my best friends, I have some great memories from there. I met Kevin there, my husband. We moved here (to Birmingham) because Kevin wanted to pursue seminary, which he didn’t get in to seminary. Looking back, God’s hand was totally in that. We moved here to pursue that but when it didn’t happen, we had bought a house here and we might as well stay and see what happens (which I’m so glad they did!). Not even a few months later, stuff with the band (Kevin is in Rush Of Fools) started happening, so obviously we ended up staying. We’ve been married 11 years. We adopted Gia, 4 and a half years ago. We started the process about 6 years ago…”

At this moment Malerie led us into the discussion about their difficult struggle with infertility. Malerie stated, “I have a really sheltered life, I had a great childhood, super great parents, and this rocked my world, to have this issue where I wanted something but I couldn’t have it, but it wasn’t a bad thing. I couldn’t understand why God was saying no to that. Those are still questions that we still have, but I don’t know on this side of heaven what the reason is, but we have peace knowing that there is a reason for whatever God is teaching us. Through that Gia came home, which is awesome.” Malerie talks about this being one of the biggest struggles of her life because a lot of people don’t want to talk about it. She tries to live life as an open book but with this struggle it was hard for her to find someone to talk to about it. She says it was “an emotional valley.” The counsel that they did receive wasn’t bad, but wasn't what they really needed. Through this, adoption came about, which wasn’t too hard of a decision for them. Malerie and Kevin always had a heart for adoption even while they were dating. She even talks about how they had a vision that their lives would look like that multicultural glimpse of heaven, but didn’t know how it was going to unfold. She discusses with us that it was probably one of her biggest struggles because she also wanted a big family, but she knows that what she has is from Christ, the struggles and the blessings. This is such beautiful insight on Malerie’s heart. Despite this struggle, she can always find joy in the Lord. (You’ll read Gia’s adoption story a little later in our conversation).

We went on to discuss other struggles from her life, and we get into the conversation about pride. Here’s what Malerie has to say about that, “Again, we have a cookie cutter family, and everything was fabulous. Because of that, I was told all the time how great I am, and how wonderful and smart I am, and then you kinda go through life believing that. That isn’t bad, except when it becomes a pride issue. So throughout high school, I had this really quiet pride. I didn’t walk around like I was so much better than everybody, but at my core I thought, ‘I’m not as bad as they are.’ I didn’t live that out in a vicious or malicious way but regardless, it’s still pride. I had a great youth minster, that kinda exposed it, and helped me see that it was an issue in my life. The scales fell off my eyes, and I thought ‘oh wow, I have so much more sin than I thought.’ It was a cool point for me that God could refine me a little bit more.”

This hit home for me because this was something that I struggled with a lot as well, and we led into a discussion of how easy it is to try and hide your pride because it’s a more internal struggle, and it more accepted. It was really amazing to hear these words from another women to help encourage me through my own journey. This led me to ask how she handles her pride in a practical way even today. She stated, “The solution that I have found…No I’m kidding, I have no solution… (add chuckles here). You know this sounds so cliché and whatever but it’s true. The more that I can be in the word, which is not nearly as enough as I want to be, but the more I can do that, the more I feel like a light is shown on who God is vs. who I am. I am able to understand me better. I really think that’s the key. If I don’t understand my own sinful nature against God, in light of Him, then I don’t have a starting place.”

Wow… let that sit there for a second and truly just reflect on such great advice to any of the women who are struggling with pride. Malerie goes on to discuss how marriage and parenting really are great ways to see who you truly are. She explains, “Marriage has helped (her struggle with pride) because you have a spouse who's a mirror. You have this really unique opportunity to see yourself through someone else’s eyes, on a daily basis.” She went on to explain what that looks like in her own marriage to Kevin, who is always honest with her good or bad. She loves that he can be honest with her because that’s what she needs. Then she goes on to talk about how parenting has brought a whole new perspective of herself. She says, “I have learned so much about myself through how she interacts with me. I’m not as patient as I thought, or I don’t offer as much encouraging words as I want to. So the way that she sees me… that’s how I want to be.” In this moment we truly got to not only see the amazing love that she has for her husband, but also her daughter because she got all choked up just thinking about the way Gia looks at her. She discussed with us how one day Gia will see them as people and she thinks that’s okay. She wants her to see their struggles and know how to work through that.

Since we were on the subject of being a mom to her little girl, we discussed some of the things she wants to instill in her daughter. She started off discussing with us what she want to instill in Gia. She states, “I need her to grow up knowing that she is worth more than what people see. There’s multiple reasons for that. She’s adopted, and people see her Asianess (probably not a word, haha.), they see it first. Even in Kindergarden she comes home and says, 'so and so says I have small eyes,' and I’m like well you do and let’s talk about how God made those eyes and that they’re wonderful and perfect. I just don’t want her to get caught up in the physical because that’s most women get caught up in. I don’t ever want her to look at me as the person that made her judge herself physically. My mom was great to not ever talk about diets, we didn’t talk about body image, that was never an issue in our house. We were just Girls. I look at that, and I didn’t know what a gift that was until I had a little girl in my house. I just don’t ever want her to hear me talk about how frustrated I am with myself or how unhappy I am with myself because God made us. Now we want to take care of ourselves and be healthy… and we talk about those choices. I need her to understand she is more than what the world sees, and with that comes your identity of who you are in Christ.

This led into our conversation about Gia’s adoption story because as you read… she’s asian. We discussed why they chose the country they did and their journey to Gia. Malerie explains, “So the emotional drama that was infertility, and still is… If you adopt domestically birth mom picks you. I could not deal with another let down because we had gone through 6 years of infertility. This was doctors appointments and month after month squalling because you don’t know what it’s about and why you can’t have a baby. So I told Kevin I can’t put my application in and have…” She stops to explain that she’s going to tell us what she told Kevin and she explained it was very mean so don’t judge her words y’all… “I can’t have 16 year olds tell me that I’m not good enough for their baby. It was terrible and I shouldn’t have said that. I can’t have someone look at my profile in a book and say ‘aww their house isn’t cute enough or they’re not cute enough,’ which listen I totally would’ve done. You want the best for your children. If you’re giving up your child, yes, you’re going to have a vision for what you want for them, but selfishly I just could not deal with that heartbreak again. We knew people that have gone years without being picked from these profile books, or the people that did get picked and then last minute the birth mother changes her mind. We had heard all these stories, so I just told Kevin that I couldn’t do it. Another part of it was I have always been asked if I was Chinese my whole life, so somewhere deep inside I’ve always thought having an asian daughter would be kinda fun and connect me in some sort of way. I am not Chinese, my family is French. That little fun fact from my childhood kinda made us consider what if we did adopt from China or somewhere like that. So we started our research for international adoptions. There are a lot of requirements, and it goes from country to country. As we were looking at the various countries served by our agency, it was between Korea and somewhere else, I don’t remember. With Korea we only had access to their special needs children, which kinda freaked me out a little bit. I didn’t know what that mean. There was another couple at church that were in the process of adopting from Korea and she was so kind and talked me through their process and what special needs can mean. You have to fill out this form, with what disabilities you can handle, and all this. I called it the jerk form because I felt like a jerk filling it out. It’s like I don’t want any of these children but these are okay. It was bad. So she is technically a special needs baby.” This led to Emily asking how they know that she’s special needs when she was born, and ultimately it was because Gia was born pre-mature, she had eye surgery and had a brain bleed when she was born. The doctor said that main thing that can come from that is learning delays, which currently Gia is on track. They filled the paperwork the same month she was born and they were matched with her 10 months later. This is such a beautiful journey to their gorgeous daughter that they love so much.

As we ended our conversation about adoption, I decided to change shifts in our conversation. I asked Malerie to define beauty and to tell me if she find herself beautiful. She stated, “Beauty is can you put make up on the right way…” and of we all laughed (we would not judge you, though, if that would be your answer. Judgement free zone). But in all seriousness she answered, “I mean honestly, there is an outward quality to beauty for sure, so I don’t want to diminish that at all. God is an artist, and so he gives us elements of beauty, I think in everybody. But with that, this is what I tell Gia, that beauty comes from your heart and how you treat others. That’s something that I want to live out for her but it’s very hard to keep that in perspective because of the world we live in. You do have the Instagram's and the Pinterest and stuff that tries to define beauty. But we live by this in our house: that beauty is what your heart says about you. That’s inside beauty, and then it can come out. People can see that beauty from how you treat them and how you speak to them.” She goes on to talk about the beauty in herself, and if she finds herself beautiful. She explains, “Most days yes. Most days I think, I’ve come to appreciate things. Like I’m short and that’s fine. That’s how God made me and I have to embrace it. I don’t feel like I get wrapped up in the ‘Am I I pretty enough.’ I am already hard on myself, Kevin will brag on me way before I would, which I’m grateful for, but most days I’m content with how God made me.” I know Gia and Kevin both think she’s beautiful and so do Emily and myself. I mean just look at her… :)

We ended with what she wants young girls to know (as she is a 10th grade English teacher, so she’s around them daily), she gave her advice to the young ladies out there. If you a young girl reading this, please keep these words near your heart. She states, “Social media is not the end all be all… But I really want them to know that life is a lot bigger than where they are in that moment. It’s not as scary or dramatic. I need to know that for myself as well. I just need young girls to understand that there’s so much more out there that you’re going to learn about yourself, that you’ll get to experience. This one day and this one moment isn’t going to crush everything that you’ve worked for.”

And that was the end… a part of me wishes that we had this conversation on video because we would have an amazing blooper reel. Between trying to be politically correct, Kevin interrupting our interview, their dog Maggie running away (which is apparently a common occurrence) we would’ve had everyone rolling on the floor laughing. Since we don’t you will just trust me and know this conversation was full of joy and laughter. If you haven’t noticed by now she is an amazing women who truly wants to be a great wife and mom… and she’s a pretty great person just to hang out with.

Malerie, thanks for sharing your story with us and I hope this can be a reminder to you that your story is awesome, and just keep being amazing!