This
is a special weekend in the Martin home!
They have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving! Only a year ago, their Thanksgiving table
looked completely different than it will look this Thursday. How could they have known how much life was
about to change for each and every one of them?
But with all those changes, they would have the opportunity to discover
God to be so much more than they’d ever known Him to be before! Knowing Him in this way would mean taking
incredible risks… not just with their pocket books (don’t you have one of those
John?), but with their hearts! Even
after bringing home Jacob and Joey, God continued to stretch their faith in
ways they had likely not imagined.
Another child needed a home… no one else seemed willing to take the
chance on a little boy who hadn’t been given a chance at life himself. And though they wondered how much they had
left to give, they knew that they could not say “no” the way so many others had
before them. The thought of a precious
little boy dying in an orphanage alone was unacceptable! So they said “YES!”…to the cost of a third
adoption in less than 9 months; …to the possibility of incredible loss; …to
another little boy around the dinner table; …to John traveling alone to deliver him home in time; …to weeks inside the four walls of a hospital room; ...to
weeks at home alone without Mommy; …to hours and hours on the road to
Gainesville for follow up appointments; …and
to a posse’ of folks that pray and then beg for updates when you’re too tired
to think, much less write intelligibly! But
most importantly they said “Yes!” to discovering that God had incredible plans
for their family of nine and would prove Himself fully sufficient through it
all!!!!
This
Thanksgiving, as the nine of them bow their heads around their dinner table, I
imagine that they will thank God for giving them the courage they needed to say
“Yes!” and for the bountiful blessings that answer has unveiled in all of their
hearts! There will be three little boys
around that table that can utter thanks for the gift of family this year for
the very first time! And Joshua… He
can’t begin to understand all that God has done in the past year… wrapping him in
His love and making the impossible POSSIBLE in his heart! But for now, we’ll all gladly stand around
this table overflowing with miracles and say “Thank you, Lord!” on Joshua’s
behalf! The Martin harvest has been
bountiful this year! For this we join
them and give great THANKS!
Blessings
and Happy, Happy Thanksgiving from all of us here in “blog land” to the Martin
Family!
Your
friend and “ghost writer”, Lori
One
of the incredible “fringe benefits” of the Martin’s “Yes!” was an unexpected
friendship along the way with another Mom possibly as crazy as Sonia herself
with whom to share the journey. (That
Mom would be ME!) Only God would have
orchestrated such a friendship with someone walking the same road… (only doing
it with three China Princesses instead!)
What a gift to have one another to share a meal, to share our struggles,
to share our joys, to encourage, and to brighten the journey through the gift
of gut-wrenching laughter!!!! When I
bow my head around my family’s table this year, I will be giving thanks to the
Lord for the gift of YOU, Sonia Martin!
Sonia and I have "plans" for these two! Part of that plan includes joint follow up appointments in Gainesville! By "joint", we mean TOGETHER! - same time! - same examination room! - side by side EKG's! You get the idea! You're not going to believe this, but they actually AGREED to this insane idea last week! That clinic will never be the same! It will likely not happen again,... but it sure was fun while it lasted! :-) We were having so much fun, we didn't even notice that Dr Fricker had arrived to talk about Joshua and Rachel's hearts! Oh... THAT's why we are here! Has he not heard? "Laughter does the heart good!"
.JPG)
