Years have passed, yet those moments feel almost within reach—certain emotions that made me believe in God without question. I expected to be loved, accepted, protected. When I made my first communion at thirteen, I was deeply moved. As I received the Eucharist, I made a silent promise, not in words but with my whole heart: I gave myself to Him.
Later I married. My husband and I decided we wanted five children. When I learned I was pregnant, I was happy, and my first thought was a prayer of thanks to God.
Then everything fell apart. My baby was in distress: three loops of umbilical cord prevented him from being born. He was suffocating. They monitored him for the first two days, but on the fifth day after birth, they sent us home saying only that he was "a bit delicate" and that we needed to help him with feeding.
Two days later, he had three more cyanotic episodes. We rushed back to the hospital for another eight days. They ran countless tests and sent us home with the same vague diagnosis: they had understood nothing.
So many hopes, so many dreams... it all lost meaning. I didn't want to live anymore.
Being a first-time mother, I had little experience and couldn't see. Inside I was terrified. After many visits, one doctor finally told us: he was spastic, with mental retardation. Our world collapsed in minutes.I, who had loved life so much, who had such hopes, such dreams—suddenly it all meant nothing. I didn't want to live anymore. I felt betrayed. I had always turned to God, asking him to help me, to give me strength to face anything life threw at me. But now, when his help should have become real, it never came. God of love—where was I supposed to find this love if even you hadn't read my heart?
I thought I mattered, even if just a little, in God's eyes, in this vast world. Instead I was nothing. That's when I rebelled—against God and against myself. Guilt, fear, accusations flooded in. Everything was questioned: me as a woman, me as a mother, my body that had failed to protect and help nature do its work. How had I failed?
One day, as if to resume an interrupted conversation, I went to church with my baby. I held him in my arms and walked to the altar, but I couldn't stay long—my eyes filled with tears and I couldn't calm myself. I never went back to church. I shut the door. I didn't want to know God anymore.
I stayed closed in my house for years, dragging myself through without hope. Then the Lord made himself felt through small kindnesses: mothers who asked me to tell my story and took an interest in us. Young people who offered to spend time with my son and with me. I had thought I was the only one who could love this child, and I felt like I had to fight the whole world alone. But I wasn't alone. God was showing himself through the people he sent my way. Slowly I was loosening the grip of hardness I had clamped around myself. I stopped crying. When these new friends welcomed us with such warmth, and I heard them speak of Jesus as their friend—these people who already loved my son—it was as if a door opened. And I could walk through it, too. I could begin again. But this time I wasn't alone.
I speak to him, I ask him to help me understand his love, to show me the way.
Yes, God was revealing himself. Slowly I learned to read his messages, to understand my own heart better. I went deeper within myself. I began to see life around me with clearer eyes: so many terrible things happen. Can God always be blamed? No. I really don't think so. I reopened my dialogue with him.When I'm anxious, when the situations I face seem to have no way out, I speak to him. I ask him to help me understand his love, to show me the way to follow. And I've learned to wait—and the answer always comes. Always. Thank you, my God.
- A Mother, 1994
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