AL: Joni, for years I’ve watched the way you approach each hurdle, each new problem that your disability may throw at you, and I have to tell you, Joni, over the years, you’ve really inspired me to face my limitations the same way…
JONI: Well, thank you, Al, I’m so grateful to hear that, but believe me, I’m inspired by other people I see who do the same…
AL: Anybody I know?
JONI: Well, I’m thinking of one particular everyday mother, she lives down in Texas, who homeschools 6 children and her name is Melanie…
AL: With 6 children, I can see why she’d inspire you…
JONI: It’s not just that, two of the children have disabilities – isn’t that something? When Melanie and her husband, Tom, first married, they hoped to have a big family – they talked about it even on their honeymoon – it was all Melanie had ever hoped for; just to be a mother of a large family. Well, their first little girl, Mary McKenna, was the absolute perfect baby. With a child like that, they were on their way. It didn’t take long and Melanie found herself pregnant again, but this time their second child, little Rachel, was born with very serious development disabilities – a vision problem, some mental retardation, and other related impairments. Melanie was shocked.
AL: … as any mother would be…
JONI: You’re right, Al, in fact Melanie had such a hard time, but she remembers very vividly the moment her outlook changed. She had been crying to her husband, saying, “But Tom, I’ll never be the same… things will never be the same!” And Tom said a very wise thing. He took his wife tenderly in his arms and said, “Honey, God doesn’t want us to be the same.”
AL: Wow, that’s a hard but a very true statement!
JONI: …and it’s pretty biblical too. For we’re told in 2 Corinthians 3:18 that, “…we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” There you have it…
AL: God doesn’t want us to stay the same!
JONI: And that’s why He brings one challenge, one hurdle, one problem after the next in our lives. When heartaches or disappointments strike us and leave us numb and bewildered, our first thought is often a regret – we grieve over the fact that things as we know them will never be the same. And it hurts. But God allows those challenges and problems to force us beyond the status quo, beyond what is comfortable… and as He draws us to Himself and has us fix our eyes on Jesus, and then we are transformed into His likeness – get this – into ever-increasing glory. To not stay the same is to open yourself up to the ever-increasing joy of becoming more and more like Jesus.
AL: And obviously, that’s something Melanie and Tom have discovered with their two children…
JONI: Not just 2, remember, but 6… because they had to face things changing again when their littlest boy, Isaiah, was born with Down Syndrome.
AL: I'm sure they had to work through that lesson again… God doesn’t want things to stay the same; because when we’re transformed into Christ’s likeness, you honestly are never the same again and that’s something to celebrate!
JONI: That’s right! And families like Tom and Melanie’s are celebrating this week at two of our Joni and Friends’ Family Retreats, one in central California and the other in New Hampshire.
AL: Well, I want to invite our friends listening to pray for all the many hundreds of moms and dads whose lives will never be the same after this week’s Family Retreats!
JONI: And it’s something to celebrate!
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JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 93176
© Joni and Friends