ABANDONMENT

Abandonment


My reality in life started when I was 6 years old, all I knew in my life was the home with  lots of girls and boys living in it. The boys were separated from the girls so it was difficult to see my little brother who is two years younger than me.

 My brother and I were not permitted to interact or spend time playing together and that hurt a lot. I never saw my parents or any family members, no one came to visit us so all I knew was that I had a brother and I had to be there for him. We never played together but my brother knew who I was. Whenever we had meals I used to always wait to see if my brother got to eat.

I enjoyed living at the orphanage home (Valley View Homes) and I was one of the favourite kids to the people that were in charge. All of that came to an abrupt ending when this woman came and adopted my brother and I. I can still remember the day when she came to fetch us. I was holding on tight to the lady that was in charge and I was crying because I refused to go with this strange woman. I had no say in the matter and we had to go with her. My world came crumbling down that day and I was scared of the unknown and what lay ahead for my brother and I.

While I was travelling with this woman I felt such pain and abandonment. First my parents didn’t want me and now the orphanage gives me away to this strange  woman, it really hurt. We were taken to this strange  house  and that became our new home. I was never happy living with my step mother and I don’t think my step mother liked me either, which later I found out that my stepmother never wanted me,  she only wanted my brother for her own son to have company. The only reason  she took me  was because the welfare told her that they do not separate brothers and sisters so here we go again I felt unwanted and unloved. I must say I longed for my parents on mother’s day and father’s day but I resented them at the same time. As I grew up I started going to church because I felt I needed something or someone. My life was meaningless and empty and I didn’t trust anybody. I built walls around myself and I knew I had to protect myself from people hurting me. I didn’t know how to love or show compassion to anybody that was around me. I was in a church meeting once and the pastor preached about being lost and of God’s love and how he is the Father to the fatherless and that’s when I felt a warm feeling within me I didn’t understand  but I liked that feeling. I then committed my life to the Lord. As time went by my eyes were open to see the anger I had for people that abandoned me and I realised that for me to move on with my life I had to forgive. The first thing I did was to forgive my parents and pray for them and  I was now grateful that I ended up in a orphanage and not on the street.

Me taking the step of forgiving and leaving my past behind opened a whole world of joy and happiness. The Lord has been with me every step of the way even when I didn’t realise it. One scripture that always brings joy to me is to know that I am the apple of  the Lords eye (Zechariah 2:8 -9) and the Lord is the Father to the fatherless. (Psalm 68:5)

I have been so incredibly blessed by becoming a mother of 3 children, what I can honestly say is God’s grace and Love is sufficient, even though I had no role model to follow of how to become a mom and How to love like a mother, all these things came naturally to me. I truly believe that the step I took in forgiving allowed the bitterness I was carrying to be replaced with Love.