Dear Pastor,

My mother and grandmother do not talk to each other. My mother talks every day that she hates her mother. My mother hates her because when she was 12 years old, my grandmother gave her to some people to keep her. My mother always said that she was so near but still so far. These people took advantage of her.

At one point, my mother only had two children. She got an opportunity to travel so she could better her life. She asked my grandmother to keep us while she would be away, and she told my mother that she didn't have any time to care for any children. Hence, my mother couldn't go and had to stay with us. She ended up having three more children.

Now, she bitterly blames her mother for where she is in life. Her dream was to become a chartered accountant, but that was shattered. She is currently selling downtown. I always tell her to forgive her mother, but she would say that I don't understand what she went through.

Pastor, I am now in university trying my utmost to do well so that I can make my mother proud. She works very hard to send all of us to school. Four of her five children are fatherless, and the fathers refuse to pay child support.

K.C.

Dear K.C.,

If your mother knew the Lord as her personal saviour, she would learn not to hate her mother, or anybody else for that matter. And she would stop blaming her mother for the life she chose to live. It is not her mother who has caused her to have five children. That is nonsense. Her mother didn't hold her down and cause the men to have sex with her and impregnate her. Going with these men was your mother's choice.

When your mother asked your grandmother to keep her children and she refused, she was well within her rights. She did not want to be responsible for anymore children. That didn't mean that she hated her grandchildren. She probably felt that your mother would not return for a long time and the burden of supporting the children would have been on her. And she was well aware that your mother was not getting any support from the fathers.

How could refusing to keep her children cause your mother to have three more children? Don't you see that your mother is talking nonsense? She didn't get the opportunity to go abroad, so she had unprotected sex and ended up with five children.

I don't know how old is your mother, but I do know that no one is too old to pursue an education. So, encourage your mother to go back to school. And please let her know that by hating her mother, she is not hurting her, she is hurting herself, emotionally, psychologically and perhaps physically, if she continues to harbour bitterness in her heart.

By the way, I am glad you are at university. I pray that you will do well. May God bless you.

Pastor