Thankful thoughts from a friend...

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!"