Nearly 8 months after welcoming her son via adoption, Gospel singer Tasha Cobbs Leonard, 40, introduces baby Asher to the world.

The “Break Every Chain” singer told PEOPLE the decision to adopt with her music producer husband Kenneth Leonard was followed by a long struggle with infertility and in vitro fertilization.

Tasha has been periodically sharing glimpses of Asher on her Instagram page, marking certain milestones but now she is giving more details about the new member of the family.

“Asher means happy. His middle name means chosen by God and he literally lives up to his name,” says Tasha. “He wakes up laughing. He’s laughing all day unless he’s asleep. He loves to play.”

Kenneth explained their journey in adopting Asher.

“We were trying to kind of figure out which ways would make it work and throughout going throughout it, all of those ways ended up not working for us. And our faith was tested,” Kenneth explains. “One of the things that I’m really happy for is that at the end of that process, our hearts were still open to God doing this, how he chose to do it. It really strengthened our faith, looking back, God really kept his promise to us.”

Tasha chimed in saying, “After all of the disappointment, and it was many times that we tried and we were disappointed, but you have to have something internally that saying, I believe that this is what is meant for me.”

“If you desire a child, and you’ve been struggling, adoption has been beautiful for us,” the artist says. “It’s literally like Asher is our blood.”

Asher joins three older siblings — Kenneth’s kids from a previous marriage.

In sharing their story with the world, Tasha hopes to encourage people to “keep their faith.”

“If you have faith for something, if you’re believing for something, don’t ever give up on it,” she adds “God is still working on the promises that he’s given us.”