It's a couple of days early for “Love Thursday”, but I wanted to post today about a great love story. Twenty-one years ago today, a young couple were married. They were 24 and 21 years old – just babies – and like all young couples, their heads were full of idealistic dreams. They wanted a large family – 6 or 8 children – and envisioned that they would all be biologically born to them and that all would be healthy and well. They figured they would be “normal”.

Little did they know the path life would take for them. The birth of their first son one year after their wedding seemed to start them down the path they “planned”, but 19 months later, those plans took an abrupt detour when their daughter was born with severe disabilities. This was not in their plan! How could this happen to them?! That young girl had NO idea how to care for a child with disabilities and was thrust into a whole new world she wasn't too sure she wanted to be in. Years later – 17, to be precise - when that same daughter passed away, that mother realized what an important role that sweet girl had played in shaping their family.

Twelve months after the birth of their daughter, their third child – a healthy son – appeared on the scene. When he was literally just 3 weeks old, reports of “Ceacescu's legacy” began hitting the news and this young couple felt inexplicably drawn to those Romanian orphans. A year later, that young wife left a 3 year-old, a disabled two-year old and a still-nursing one-year old and got on a plane to go to Romania. She adopted two young girls from orphanages there and the course of their life changed forever. They now have adopted children from seven countries, on five continents, healthy and special needs, because that first daughter taught them that children with disabilities are still just children who need love.

Adoption has become their life. They eat, sleep, and breathe adoption every day. They think about adoption, they talk about adoption, their children talk about their first families with ease (and sometimes cause the biological children to feel left out because they “only” have one mom), they have helped others with adoption many times over. Adoption has become a constant thread in their lives.

Over the years, their marriage has been through “the fire” of loss – loss of two lovely daughters, loss of multiple pregnancies (the secondary infertility did not start until after their first adoption – weird, huh?), loss of raising only “healthy” children, literal loss of many possessions and the ability to live in their home because of a fire, loss of any hope of being a “normal” family, the loss of innocence as older children they adopted made painful, hurtful choices, adoption loss as children they loved died before they could make it home or as children were kept in orphanages because their family wasn't the “right” kind.

They have also had many gains – the gain of personal strength born of adversity, the gain of a large, lovely family, the gain of a marriage strengthened time and time again, the gain of true friends who understand “why”, even if they don't understand the “how”, the gain of love multiplied many times over, the gain of a rock-solid relationship with God, the gain of the gift of faith that if God leads you to it, He will also lead you through it, the gain of a home large enough to fit them all, and a car that will as well (OK, it's a bus) and a salary that allows us, I mean them, to feed and care for their family.

Yes, it's my anniversary today – one that I am not home to share with my sweet husband. There is some irony in that, as our first adoption in Romania saw me missing our 5th anniversary. Imagine – our 5th anniversary and there I was adopting our 4th and 5th children. Now we're to our 21st anniversary and likely our last adoption and I'm once again away from home.

My husband is a rock and I love him deeply. I had no idea 21 years ago what my life would look like in the year 2007, but I am very pleased with how things have gone. There is no one else I would rather take this journey with. Here's to 21 more years – and 21 more after that and more after that . . . I love you, Greg.