Mariel, a dear friend, was still single when she and I worked in the same office. She was well liked by everyone because of her cheery disposition. Without our knowledge, she was seeing a married man. Soon, she got pregnant and gave birth to a beautiful daughter. She kept this part of her life private.
Years later, Mariel and her boyfriend (after being legally separated from his wife) got married. In my unbiased opinion, they are each other’s yin and yang.
During a recent chat with Mariel, she opened up about her pregnancy. “My mom came to Manila because I did not go home for Christmas that year.”
Entering Mariel’s apartment, her mom fawned over the cute, three-month-old baby in the arms of a yaya. Clueless about Mariel’s status, she assumed that the baby was the neighbor’s.
“Mom, she’s mine,” Mariel said, taking the baby from the yaya as she prepared for the worst. “But Mom said nothing, perhaps sorely processing all that had happened behind her back.”
Then her mom cried—and so did I, just listening to Mariel’s story and feeling her mom’s pain.
But because mothers have a wellspring of love for their children, she cradled the baby in her arms, while Mariel called her boyfriend waiting outside.
“Up to this day, I don’t know what words were said between him and Mom.”
Now that Mariel’s secret was out, I bravely probed, “What made you -”
“I was young, careless, and rash!”
“Does your daughter know?”
“No. I don’t want her thinking she was an accident.”
“But history might repeat -”
“I am praying for grace that it won’t,” Mariel stressed. “But when she was my age when I had her, I fully understood the impact of my rashness on my mother.”
How can parents counsel the youth to avoid making rash decisions? It's a rhetorical question. I have three sons so I never went through that kind of problem.
The Lord has an answer in Scripture: Proverbs 22:6 (NLT) reads, "Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it."
No comments:
Post a Comment