One of the things about being back in Oregon was how much I miss my family and friends. You know it is really hard in a week to get together with everyone and have the time to catch up on being so far distant from one another. Like most I find this hard with my ever changing and growing adult grandkids and the great-grandkids that seem to have been born yesterday but are now in school, from kindergarten through high school. How did that happen so quickly? How little time I had with them!
Then there are friends and beyond that spiritual brothers and sisters that have been with me every step of the way from drunken God hater to a sober, joyful, believer in God through Jesus Christ. Some now approaching the end of this life but assured of the world to come. I want to share the story of one.
His name is Henry Martin. I probably do not know the history of this man as well as some. But I have known him for as long as I have had a relationship with the town of Grants Pass, Oregon and shorter but more important from the day I stepped a foot into the Grants Pass SDA Church. You see he was the first man to greet me that day. Today I cannot tell you his whole story, but I suggest you seek to know more about this Godly man. Today I want to tell you OUR story.
In 1987 I met a woman in a bar in Glendale, California. She was my bartender and soon enough became my wife. Not that unusual, I dated and was in relationships with a number of bartenders but what made this different was that this lady was a fallen away Seventh Day Adventist who never stopped believing in Jesus Christ as her Savior. Yes, she like me spent years struggling with addictions. But had the added nightmares of sexual abuse that kept her bound and afraid. Still she told me often of her prayers for release and struggles to return to her believes. I shrugged it all off, I had no desire to understand her relationship with a God I did not believe in.
On our first trip to her home in Grants Pass, I met a lot of family, some who were church goers and others who were not. I also heard of a family of friends who were a lot like her own family, who had grown up and been part of my wife’s life from its beginning. It was the Martin clan and even though I did not meet any of them on that trip, the stories of their work for the Lord pervaded our marriage from then on.
In subsequent years our marriage struggled, failed, and came back together. And as I have described on these pages many times after returning to Grants Pass to live, in 2010 I reluctantly walked through the doors of the church I now call my spiritual home. Yes, the man who was there to greet me was Henry Martin and his wife Robin. They, of course, greeted Dianne as a long-lost relative who had finally reached home after a long journey, hugs all around and many tears. But they did the same with me. Suddenly these people who I had heard about for years were a reality and even as they warmly hugged me, I feared them because at that moment I was not ready to give up this world. In a way to me they represented the enemy of my supposed freedom.
The thing is Henry seemed to understand this. As we began to attend church regularly he never pushed or preached. He simply loved and showed me so much what a man of God looked like. I watched him when we would attend church functions, there he was a quiet leader. I would listen to him when he spoke, no wasted words, just reflections on God’s Word. And best of all, as I drew closer to him he helped me see that a prayerful life, saturated with the Word was not a suppression of my freedom but a fulfillment. Through his example, his solid faith, and his ministration to me and so many others, I found a person I always knew I could count on during my rocky transformation. That was and is Henry Martin to me.
As I have said there is so much more to his and Robin’s story. Health ministry at the Weimar Institute and around the world. His own transformation from hippy to man of God. Speaker, television host, pillar of the church. All these things and so much more, but to me he is and always will be my mentor and my friend. I can truly say, I love and miss this man!
These days Henry’s health is failing. When I was attending Sabbath services in Grants Pass a few weeks ago he was there with Robin supporting him and I saw that he is weakened by the fall he took a few years ago and by pneumonia yet the glow of Jesus love still was bright in his eyes. And as I bent down to talk to him he still had words of encouragement for me, no complaints for himself. He told me, “We will soon meet in heaven!” and I replied, “For me a lot of that is because I have known you!” With that we both teared up.
Once a few years ago, I was struggling during Dianne’s demise. My daughter was staying with her mother, so I could attend church. As I was approaching the church lobby, Henry came out from within, worried about me and wondering on Dianne’s condition. I told him that her time was short and that I was struggling to find my place in faith knowing I would soon be without her support. He gave the half smile I had seen so many times and shared this verse, “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12: 9-10) He actually shared just verse 9 and I have added 10 because it was after that encounter with Henry that these verses became my strong hold. It was just like him to know just what God needed and intended for me at that moment. Thanks Henry! I wish I had shared these verses with you last time we met. But I know you already are assured of them. I am looking forward to having the mansion next to yours in God’s kingdom to come! I love you, man!
Blessings and Happy Sabbath,
John
11/2/18
