Robert and Nancy Johnson had met in college. Two months after they were married, Nancy was pregnant with their first child and she dropped out of school to become a homemaker. This, she felt, was her true calling. Mrs Johnson was a God-fearing woman, determined to walk the path of righteousness no matter the cost. Aria couldn’t help but feel that under her carefully perfected exterior, there was someone inside of her screaming. She strived toward goodness and toward making everyone around her good too, with a verve that was downright exhausting. It was especially exhausting for Mr Johnson.

Mr Johnson was a shell of a man. Even though he had grown up Christian too, the veracity of his wife’s faith kept him imprisoned beneath a wardrobe of cardigans and khaki dress pants. Purity was such a heavy expectation from the society that he found himself in that all of his deeper, carnal urges had to be suppressed and denied. But, as Aria soon found out, suppressed urges cannot be suppressed forever. If they are, they tend to be indulged in secret. Mr Johnson was the head of the household in title alone.

Mrs Johnson had given birth to two children before her last pregnancy, when she developed placenta accreta. The doctors had to perform a full hysterectomy to save her life. The event rocked their marriage and shook their faith. Mrs Johnson felt like God was punishing her by taking away her God-given gift to bear children. She was inconsolable for months. But when she saw the children at the group home, she spied a kind of hope. She suddenly grasped a greater vision. Her prayers were answered. She could see clearly that God had not taken her ability to bear children away to punish her. God had taken her ability to bear children away so that she could see her greater purpose, as a mother to those who have no mothers. The Johnsons had adopted a little three-year-old girl the summer before, bringing their collection of children to four before they set their sights on Aria.

The day they came to meet Aria for the first time, they brought a plate of homemade chocolate-chip cookies. Aria sat in a chair and reluctantly took one from the stack, watching the couple with an enthusiasm that was watered down by an equal amount of suspicion. A caseworker listened with a quizzical smile on her face while Mrs Johnson spoke: “The Lord has trusted us with the care of his children. We believe that by providing an example of God’s love, we are giving these children, who have had a rough start, the opportunity to know him personally.

“Through the witness of our family and the hearing of the gospel message, these children can say yes to the Lord, and because of that they have a real chance at a good life.”