Give Life
This story, a true story. I have been writing this in my mind for a couple of months now. I have seek for permission and I now pen it down with only one purpose and that is… we must always give God a chance to right your life.
Sometime, late last year, I received a message
“…I am struggling thru’ my days…trying very hard to be strong, to believe, forget about hatred, to forgive, to be patient, to heal the hurt…” When you received a message like this, you just want to know the reason and quickly offer help. Thinking of ways to ease the pain and hurt. Sometimes, the best solution isn’t giving the right answer. It is riding the journey with the person.
It was a story of the a young lady getting pregnant before marriage. She found out she was pregnant just as she was starting her overseas studies. Yes, she was already overseas, school has started and she was well settled down. A bright future awaited her. At that moment of discovery, everything came to a sudden brake. She was lost, the issue was too great to handle by herself. She called the boy involved, the boy flew over and wanted to look for a clinic to abort the baby. She didn’t want to, she wanted to keep the baby but boy refused to. Not prepared to get married as he too was about to start his University life. She was helpless and the only refuge was home. That was when my friend text me.
I always count it an honour and a privilege when friends come to me. It show that they count me worthy to enter into their inner world. I do not take it lightly, I honour it and I value it. However, I am only human, the first thing I do is that I turn to the one who has created me. “Use me, oh Lord!”
“You are a great mother because at your girl’s darkest moments, she thought of home and she thought of her mother. Your girl could have aborted the baby overseas, carry on with her studies and no one would have known about the whole event. Instead, she had taken the courage to face her problem and her family. There must have been something which you have done right in order for your girl to seek refuge from her mother and at home.”
For any mum to face with such an issue, it is no easy journey especially when the boy and his family have not made things easy. It takes unconditional love, love in spite of, love no matter what…to accept it and move on with your daughter.
So many times, I give out advice on unconditional love but for the very first time in my life, I witnessed unconditional love. To love with no strings attached, to love with zero conditions. Forgoing all the tens of thousands of dollars spent sending her daughter for overseas education, the mother said “come home.”
Coming home meant facing a new set of problems. We being Asians, we staying in Asia, what would others think of a young girl with a big belly moving around. What would relatives and friends think of us? Ponder….is it worth sacrificing a life just to keep our ‘face’? The days and months were painful for my friend. The things she shared through text messages were painful. The problem is often not an issue but how one cope with it is the real deal.
I praise the mother’s unceasing love. Slowly, she revealed the incident to her relatives. She did not hide her daughter from society, she did not keep her under wraps. This brought the family together…closer.
I salute the young girl’s courage and determination. Her maturity is beyond even some of the older women I know. She went on to apply for local University. She went on to look for a job and actually started work in a cafe. As for my friend, she started knitting for the baby. Did all the shopping and getting ready for the baby’s arrival. The hurt and pain have turned into joy.
A family must be a fort, a family must be a shield.
It would have been a deeper hurt, a longer pain if the baby was aborted. Two wrongs will never make one right. Give God a chance to right your wrong. Give life a chance.
The gift of God
Note: Abortion is legal in Singapore and it can be carried out on request during the first 24 weeks of gestation. I hope you know that at 24 weeks, the baby is fully capable of feeling the pain. I have seen a good friend who had to birth her baby at 22 weeks and is now a four-year-old handsome boy after receiving much love and undivided attention from his parents. Give life a chance!
