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Home Again

This is the continuation of my heartbreaking life story. It broke my heart then, before God slowly made me whole again. Today, I can look back and see that every painful experience became part of God's greater plan for my life.

I am sharing my story to encourage those who are walking through difficult seasons. If you are hurting today, please don't lose hope. No matter how impossible life may seem, there is always help from above. God sees every tear, hears every prayer, and works even when we cannot see Him. For that, I give Him all the glory.

If you would like to read the beginning of my story, you can find it here:

Away From Home
http://joysnotepad.blogspot.no/2013/08/away-from-home.html

The last words of the previous chapter were these:

Anyway, I was home again. Home, where my stomach longed for food all the time. Home with my younger sisters, wondering when our poverty would ever end. Home, where we always cooked rice porridge because we didn't have enough rice for everyone. Feeling sorry for ourselves. Envying those who had better lives than we did. Ashamed to invite friends into our home, afraid they would see how little we had. Tears became my constant companion...

Home Again

School finally started.

My grandmother allowed us to live in her old bungalow in town because the land my father owned had already been taken by one of his cousins after my aunt had mortgaged it. (That is another story for another time.)

I was in Grade Four then.

As I mentioned before, I loved reading. I borrowed many books from the school library—not textbooks, but fairy tales. I learned my lessons in the classroom, but my imagination came alive through those wonderful stories.

I pictured myself as a princess living in a magnificent castle, wearing beautiful dresses, surrounded by laughter, music, delicious food, and people who loved me. Those stories became my escape from reality. For a little while, I could forget hunger, poverty, and the uncertainty that surrounded our family.

Who could blame me?

Perhaps that is one of the gifts God has given children—the ability to dream beyond their circumstances. Although I didn't know Him personally then, He had already planted hope in my heart.

The school librarian noticed me and began talking with me. Later she offered my mother a laundry job. We desperately needed the money, so although I felt embarrassed that my mother would wash other people's clothes, I knew we had very little choice.

Every weekend I helped my mother do the laundry. Since my two older sisters were already living with relatives, I became the eldest child at home.

We had no running water, so we carried the clothes to a creek about one kilometer away.

Looking back today, I realize something I could not appreciate as a child.

Those long walks, the heavy baskets of clothes, our tired hands, and our aching backs became some of the sweetest memories I have of my mother. Poverty took many things from us, but it also gave us precious time together.

Sometimes God hides His greatest blessings inside our hardest days.

One day the librarian spoke to me very seriously.

She offered to send me to school. All I had to do was live with her family, help with the household chores, wash clothes, and care for her children.

I was only twelve years old.

Because of my painful experience of living away from home, fear immediately filled my heart. I politely refused her offer.

I was afraid I would lose my freedom and spend the rest of my childhood serving another family.

I was grateful that my mother allowed me to make my own decision.

Soon afterward, the librarian stopped talking to me.

She also stopped giving my mother laundry work.

At that moment, another door seemed to close.

But now I know something I didn't know then.

When one door closes, it does not mean God has abandoned us. Sometimes He closes one door because He is preparing another that we cannot yet see. We only understand His plan when we look backward.

My mother then began cooking food to sell.

I helped by carrying the food around the neighborhood.

I was terribly ashamed.

I hoped none of my classmates would see me.

But what choice did I have?

The little money we earned helped put food on our table.

Looking back now, I realize my mother was teaching me something without saying a single word.

Honest work is never shameful.

No matter how small the task, working faithfully is honorable before God.

One day I witnessed a frightening argument between my mother and one of my father's nephews.

My father's relatives had never truly accepted my mother because she was the daughter of one of the tenants who worked on their land.

The argument became violent.

Fearing for her safety, my mother grabbed a knife to defend herself.

Terrified, I ran into the street crying for help.

No one came.

I shouted as loudly as I could.

Still, no one came.

In the struggle, my mother wounded my cousin slightly before he escaped.

Later the police arrived and took my mother to jail.

Our whole world collapsed.

I remember thinking,

"What will happen to us now?"

"Who will take care of us?"

My father could do nothing.

He was blind and deaf.

Sometimes I wonder what he was feeling that night.

Did he cry?

Did he blame himself because he couldn't protect us?

Did he silently ask God why this was happening?

As a child, I didn't understand the depth of my father's suffering.

Today, as an adult, I can only imagine how helpless he must have felt.

None of us slept that night.

It felt like a nightmare.

Again I begged our neighbors for help.

Again no one came.

Perhaps they were afraid because my cousin's family was influential in our community.

I often thought about my mother sitting alone in jail.

Was she crying too?

Was she praying?

I cannot remember how many days she stayed there.

When she was finally released, she was no longer the cheerful woman I knew.

She carried a sadness that seemed too heavy for words.

My heart broke for her.

She decided we would sell whatever little property we still owned and leave that place forever.

She said,

"If nobody cares whether we live or die, there is no reason for us to stay here."

As a little girl, I asked the same questions that many hurting people still ask today.

Why are people so cruel?

Where is God?

Why doesn't He help us?

Does He even hear our prayers?

At that time, heaven seemed silent.

I thought God had forgotten us.

But today I know that His silence did not mean His absence.

While I thought He was doing nothing, He was quietly arranging every step of my future.

Romans 8:28 would later become one of the verses that helped me understand my childhood:

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose."

I couldn't see it then.

But now I can.

We moved to a place where my mother's closest relatives lived.

I was in Grade Five and had to transfer schools in the middle of the school year.

Once again...

God opened another door.

Another teacher noticed me.

She borrowed my notebooks from my previous school and read through them.

Perhaps she saw something in me that I couldn't yet see in myself.

She encouraged me to join academic competitions and participate in different school activities.

I wanted to.

But participating required money we simply did not have.

One day she announced that she would inspect everyone's fingernails.

Most children probably thought nothing of it.

For me, it was terrifying.

Since I had lost half of one finger when I was three years old, I always hid my left hand.

I was afraid people would laugh at me.

So although I wasn't sick that day, I told my teacher I had a terrible stomachache.

She kindly allowed me to go home.

As I walked away I whispered,

"Lord, please don't let her inspect our fingernails again. I don't know what excuse I will make next time."

Even my small childhood fears mattered to God, although I didn't realize it then.

Although we now lived near my mother's relatives, they were poor too and could not support us.

My mother searched desperately for work, but once again we struggled to find enough food.

Eventually she decided we had to move again.

Her plan broke my heart.

She wanted to leave me behind with relatives until the school year ended.

My father would stay with one of his sisters.

My younger sisters would stay with other relatives.

I begged my mother,

"Please don't leave me."

I didn't even care if I had to stop going to school.

I was terrified she would never come back for me.

Thankfully, she listened.

She took me with her.

Once again, another unexpected door opened.

My sisters found temporary homes with relatives.

My father stayed with his sister.

My mother and I found work together as housemaids.

People may see that as another tragedy.

Today I see it differently.

God wasn't abandoning me.

He was preparing me.

The lessons I learned while serving others would later shape my character, strengthen my faith, teach me perseverance, and become part of the testimony I now share around the world.

What seemed like another painful chapter was actually God preparing the next chapter of my life.

For I know now what I could never have imagined as a frightened little girl:

God had never stopped writing my story.

Not once.

Sometimes we think a closed door is the end.

With God, it is often just the hallway leading to another door.

Difficulties remained.

But I was with my mother.

And sometimes, love is the safest home we can ever have.

To be continued...

My life as a housemaid at the age of twelve.

Before I close this chapter, I want to encourage anyone who may feel that life has been unfair.

Perhaps you have asked the same questions I asked as a little girl.

"Where are You, God?"

Please don't give up.

Years may pass before you understand what God is doing, but one day you may look back—as I have—and discover that He never left your side. Every closed door, every tear, every disappointment, and every painful goodbye became part of His beautiful plan.

As a child, I could never have imagined that God was already writing a completely different ending to my story.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
Jeremiah 29:11

Today, I know those words are true.