My Mother’s Affair… My Father’s Broken Heart… My Hatred…

I was four years old when the security of my family started to crumble. That was when my mother left our home in Penang to work in Kuala Lumpur to supplement our household income.

Every time she left, we would send her off at the train station, and take the ferry back to Penang. I distinctly remember letting the wind blow away the tears from my face as a song played in my head, “I’m nobody’s child, nobody wants me, I’m nobody’s child.”

While working in KL, my mother met and fell in love with an Englishman. She then did something that till today, I cannot understand how she could do such a wretched thing – she brought the Englishman into our family home and shared her marital bed with him while her husband, my father, slept in another room.

I don’t know why my father allowed such wickedness. What I knew was he would punch his fist on the wall in anguish. The flesh on his fist would split open and bleed – symbolic of his heart.

My mother lied to the Englishman that my father wasn’t her husband and that only I was her daughter and her other four children were her siblings!

Soon after, my mother abandoned us to follow the (still unsuspecting) Englishman to England. I was six years old when I started hating my mother.

My father eventually died. I’m not sure which killed him first – his tuberculosis or his broken heart. My eldest sister at 16 years old became my “father and mother”, forgoing her studies, taking on undesirable jobs to feed and keep us in school.

No forgiveness

When I was in my 20s, my mother finally confessed her lies to her Englishman husband. They made arrangements to meet us. While my siblings had forgiven her, I chose hatred. There would be no love for someone undeserving like her.

Those annual trips of my mother and stepfather went on for three decades. And I continued to hide my hatred behind a plastered smile. I felt disgusted to even touch her.

In 2012, my eldest sister passed away after a painful 14 months of cancer. I hated my mother even more and blamed her for my sister’s tough life.

Even after I accepted Christ and knew of His forgiveness, I refused to forgive my mother. My identity with Christ was shaky. Am I indeed God’s child? Surely a child of God could forgive. I was ashamed to be His child when I knew of my heart’s wickedness.

At the end of 2017, I felt I needed to take a break and spend time with some good friends. During one of our prayer times, my friend said, “In God’s timing, soon, things will be set right again.” God was orchestrating things and people without my realisation. Shortly after the break, my mother came to spend some time with us.

During her stay, she had a minor fall, and I had to take her for a check-up. During our car ride back, the Holy Spirit opened up the channel of conversation. My mother asked, “Do you love me?” I froze. I couldn’t lie, so I kept quiet at first. Eventually, I told her how I felt about her. In return, she shared her feelings. She felt horribly sorry and had been carrying the guilt all along.

Restored

After over 30 years, I was finally able to tell her my hurts and hear from her. Our gushing tears washed away the hundreds of locusts which had clung to our hearts, eating us up inside.

After my mother went back to England, I cried because I missed her. That’s when I knew love for her had returned to my heart. God continued to work in our hearts, and the love story of my mother and I continued as the restoration work was not yet completed.

In June 2018, three months after she left, we heard she had cancer**. The Holy Spirit prompted me to visit her and I obeyed. Off I went to England to be with her for six weeks. Those times with my mother turned out to be God’s gift for both of us. When I stepped into her house, it was as if I was looking at her through the eyes of Jesus. There was no hatred at all. All I felt was the love of Jesus.

In those six weeks, I experienced the joy of a mother-daughter relationship afresh. I experienced what Jesus’ love was all about and received true healing after carrying the wound in me for 30 years.

I don’t know why it took so long for forgiveness to happen. I can’t comprehend why my mother left us but “it doesn’t matter anymore”. Those were the words that came into my heart. I was set free from the dungeons of unforgiveness, which had robbed me of my joy.

I can only praise Him endlessly that my mother and I still have the chance to say “I love you” to each other before it’s too late. Whatever the locusts had eaten, by the power and love of God, everything was restored beyond my imagination.