Jenny Marrs Celebrates Daughter’s Homecoming: God is ‘Only, Always Good’
By Movieguide® Contributor
HGTV star Jenny Marrs recently celebrated daughter Sylvie’s homecoming anniversary in a heartfelt Instagram post.
“I wasn’t there on the day she entered this world,” Marrs wrote under a photo of husband Dave and herself greeting Sylvie at the airport. “I wasn’t privy to the miracles that took place that day half a world away. I don’t know what her first days and months and years looked like. There is so much I just don’t know. Looming, gaping holes from her earliest, most formative years are painful reminders of all I have missed.”
She continued, “Yet, what I DO know is on this day, 9 years ago, I bore witness to a miracle. An honest to goodness God-sized, Red-Sea-parting kind of miracle.”
Sylvie was adopted from the Democratic Republic of Congo, something the couple had wanted to do for a long time. They told People that they put their adoption plans on hold when they had their twin boys, Nathan and Ben, but after 18 months, they decided, “Let’s go ahead and open the [adoption] file back up.”
In 2013, the adoption papers were signed and Sylvie was the Marrs’ daughter. However, the Congolese government shut down just a month later, which meant the paperwork needed to get Sylvie out of the country was no longer available.
“I specifically went over to Congo, waited outside our U.S. embassy to try to get in and plead my case with the U.S. ambassador,” Dave explained. “When I tell you, anything that we could do … we were on the phone with congressmen, with our state representatives — like, the Vatican, we tried.”
Marrs detailed the struggles they went through to get Sylvie to the United States in her Instagram post as well — “602 days of waiting, 602 days of praying and pleading and calling Congressmen and Senators and flying over the sea to beg the US Embassy to help. Emails and letters and phone calls with no traction toward getting her home left us depleted.”
“Make no mistake – a battle took place to bring our daughter home. The exhale that took place when she was back in my arms on US soil was echoed in heaven,” she shared. “The spiritual battle that I couldn’t see during those long days and nights was finally over.”
By July 2014, Sylvie was home with the Marrs in Arkansas.
Marrs wrote, “I post this photo every year on this day to remember. I never want to forget the way the Lord fought on our behalf. The things He has in store for Sylvie must certainly leave the enemy shaking in fear or else he wouldn’t have worked so tirelessly to keep her from us. It’s hard to believe nine years have passed since this day when our family was finally under the same roof.”
She also encouraged others who might be “in the middle of your own long, dark night of waiting.”
“I hope our story can bring encouragement for your weary heart. Your story isn’t over yet. Don’t despair,” Marrs wrote. “Remember, our God NEVER authors pain. He is only, always good. Sometimes, we can’t see past our current sight line but, just over the horizon, He has good, good things in store. Keep trusting.”
- Content: +2Share:
- Content: +4