A Mother’s Love Makes All the Difference
A Mother’s Love Makes All the Difference
Love is patient and kind. When you love someone, you will be loyal regardless of the costs. You will always believe in her; always expect the best from her, and always stand your ground in defense of her. (Living Bible paraphrased 1st Corinthians 13)
I wanted the move from Augusta to Homestead to be a new beginning filled with expectations of hope, faith, and love. Yes, it would be challenging but possible. For, God’s Word says, “Is anything too hard for God?” To be honest, I wasn’t sure. My faith was weak and tinier than a mustard seed. Following the death of our daughter, Chenoa, I walked around like my heart was chained to a thousand pound ball. For it was in Augusta where our 3 month old daughter Chenoa was found lying still and breathless in her crib.
When this happened, thoughts twirled in my brain like a professional ballerina. Why did this happen? Are we being punished? Could we have done anything differently? My usual MO was to check on Chenoa periodically during the night. Checking on Chenoa was a blessing and honor. So, with a gentle breath, I would lightly blow a small amount of air on her face— just enough breath to see her move ever so slightly. But, on this night, Chenoa’s small frame remained still. Horrors! Panic! 911! Start CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation). Use two fingers to pound her chest. Gently breathe into her lungs. To no avail, the sting of death overpowered our frail human attempts to save her life. What now? How do we get through this? What will life be like without my baby? Do all things ‘really’ work together for good as it is written in Romans 28:8? At this point, I didn’t care. My only thought was to get away from this city.
Welcome Homestead…..a new beginning for me, Howard, and our oldest daughter, Maria. We will take special care of Maria. First, we will not place her in daycare. On top of the high cost and potential for infections, I honestly didn’t trust others caring for Maria. So, we decided that home care is better than daycare for Maria. I will work and Howard will stay home and watch over our loving, sensitive, and beautiful daughter. We were happy about our decision.
Three years pass and Maria starts kindergarten. The teacher says that Maria is not able to keep up with the other children. She recommends transferring her to the slow learners group. This news is shocking. Panic feelings start welling up inside my being. Did we shortchange our daughter by keeping her home while the other children experienced pre-kindergarten? True, by making this decision, Maria missed exposure to alphabet knowledge, word development, rhymes, syllables, hearing and identifying sounds in spoken words. So, where do we go from here? Are we about to experience a learning nightmare with Maria? Love said NO more nightmares! Love said YES! God is able to turn a nightmare into an impossible dream!
I considered the possibility that Maria learned in a manner like me. So, I bought a ton of books and started teaching her from my learning style. After working all day, regardless of fatigue, God gave me the strength to work with my baby. I taught her how to recognize letters and sound out words. During this time, I discovered that not only did Maria have an amazing capacity to learn, but also had an intense fervor for knowledge.
Before long, she was reading. So I started advancing her learnings. I taught her to multiply, divide, add, subtract as well as how to use adjectives, nouns, verbs, and adverbs in sentences. After about 2 months, Maria’s kindergarten teacher noticed her gifts and talents. So much so, that she gave her advanced assignments which she excelled in. Now, her classmates could not keep up with her! Soon thereafter, Maria took the gifted test and scored in the 99.9 percentile. She was skipped to the second grade!
Now, Maria is 15 years of age. She has a talent for art, excels in science, and has already taken several college level courses. How many families have a Maria? How many gifted children are categorized as slow learners? Every child on this earth has a reason for being. Unconditional love is the catalyst that stimulates children to achieve, to be the best they can be, to discover their talents for the purpose of making their contribution to the world.
Love is patient and kind. When you love someone, you will be loyal regardless of the costs. You will always believe in her; always expect the best from her, and always stand your ground in defense of her. (Living Bible paraphrased 1st Corinthians 13).
