When I Became A Mum

Was not at all what I had expected.

When growing up, I planned to be a mother someday. My children, a boy and a girl, would look like me and my future husband. They’d be perfect, not like the other children who cried all the time or who gave their parents a hard time. I’d see them in my mind, dream of them sometimes.

Then I got married and things changed. Eventually, because I already loved them so much, I decided not to have them. I realised that no matter how much I’d try to give them the very best, they’d still be exposed to a corrupt world, that could pretty easily spoil it all for them. I began noticing the children, and how much they changed from when I was a child. They already knew more than I did, things they shouldn’t. They were more indifferent to godly things and more in tune with evil things. It scared me when I began seeing this inside the church.

Perfect parents were victims of children who became rebellious, angry, and distant from everything good they had taught them all their life. I blamed the world and I realised I’d be selfish to bring children into such world. So I decided to have different kind of children, spiritual ones.

At first I thought I wouldn’t get what I’d get with my own children. I thought I’d never enjoy that bond a mother and her daughter has. And for awhile, I didn’t. I was too young, too inexperienced, too naive. I begged God to change me.

And so He did. I had to go through some hardships, but nothing I couldn’t handle. I began seeing results from my prayers. Some young women, also pastors’ wives, were humble enough to listen to me and see me as their spiritual mother. I was so happy... we’d always find ways to spend time together, I’d teach them what God had taught me and they’d gladly apply to their lives.

But soon after that, I welcomed a new challenge in my life. Filipe, a 3-year-old handsome little boy from an orphanage. He was the most beautiful child I had ever seen in my life. I saw his picture and heard a little about his story, and in just a few months, he was given to us in custody. I had to press the pause button on my other spiritual children to focus all my time and energy on the little one God had personally given to me.

Filipe, had gone through a number of traumatic experiences as a baby, most of which I didn’t know. At 3 years old, he was already an angry boy. He hated me the first time we met. Wouldn’t look in my eyes, wouldn’t speak to me, in fact, he’d even stop talking if I came in the room. This devastated me. I hadn’t expected that he’d associate me with his former mother, but he did.

But in a month’s time, after much prayer and love, he gave in. He started to develop some feelings for me, though they were the suspicious kind. Every new friend of mine he’d meet, he’d easily get attached, and completely forget me. He’d want to stay in their lap and not mine. He’d talk to them and not me. He’d behave as if he were their child, not mine. This would kill me every time. I’d cry every single day.

At this time in my life, I literally entered a desert. My husband was too busy in the church, my friends and relatives didn’t understand me. They thought Filipe was the perfect child - caring, funny, and smart and yet what they didn’t know was that he’d only be that way with them.

I had wanted to be a mother so much and now, I was beginning to think I wasn’t fit to be one. I didn’t have the love of my son. I remember one day, as I prayed again about the same situation with Filipe, that I heard God’s voice very vividly: ‘See, that’s exactly how I feel.’

God also goes through this kind of rejection every single day, not by one son but by billions, and yet He didn’t give up on them. Why should I? I could do this, I could win my son’s love and turn him into the man of God I had faith he’d be one day.

So I made a list of all the characteristics I wanted him to acquire, presented it to God, and believed.

To be continued...

In Faith
Cristiane Cardoso