A Mother's Love

This is the story of a woman you'll never meet....

who lives in a country you'll never visit...

who's experienced things you can't imagine.

This woman finds out she's pregnant. Maybe she's married, maybe not. The details aren't important. The fact is she's now a mother.

The father of this baby is no longer around. Maybe he never was. Maybe he died of one of the many diseases that plague third world countries.

Despite the circumstances, this woman loves her child and will make whatever sacrifices are necessary to be able to raise it.

This proves to be harder than she thought. She can't get a job. She has no education and there's no work available. She could resort to prostitution, but that would be no life for her child. She steals what she can for their survival, but fears what will happen to her child if she's caught.

Soon, she and her baby are so sick that they're both on the verge of death. She does the only thing she thinks can be done to give her baby a chance at life. She leaves the baby at an orphanage. There her baby will have food and shelter. Maybe someone will come along and adopt her baby. Then her baby will have a family and security. Things she was not able to give.

She will spend the rest of her life wondering what happened to her child.

*   *   *

As someone who hopes to adopt one day, this story breaks my heart. I made this particular story up, but things like this happen. It's one thing to adopt a child whose parents are dead or whose parents willingly gave it up or whose parental rights were terminated because the child wasn't safe in their care. It's another thing to think that you could have a child that someone unwillingly gave up. A child whose parents saw no other option. This was the only way their child could survive.

This is the sad reality of poverty. While some parents leave their child because they cannot care for them, there are many others who fight for their child's survival every day. Most of us can't even begin to imagine what this is like. 

We live in a world of convenience and comfort. We've never gone a day without a meal, clean clothes, entertainment, and a place to sleep at night. We can't imagine what it's like to have no hope.

There is good news, though. There are people out there doing things about this problem and you can be a part of it. One organization that is helping keep families together is Compassion.

If you'd like to help a mother living in poverty be able to raise a healthy child, you can visit Compassion's website and consider making a monthly or one time donation to their Child Survival  Program.

*Note: The pictures used in this post are from my trip to Tizimin this past summer. These women and children do not represent what was mentioned in this post, but are simply being used to show mothers and children living in poor conditions and poverty.*