Dear Pastor,

I am 23 and I have two sisters. I do not have brothers. My father is much darker than my mother and I am dark. My mother has never shown me love. When I was growing up, everyone left the housework to me. I had to do household chores and I had to learn to cook early. My mother spent her time by the roadside selling bag juice and chips to the school children.

When the others were allowed to go to school, I couldn't go. When she got home, if everything was not as she had instructed me, she would beat me.

My mother beat me with anything she caught, so I have marks on my skin, especially my back and my legs.

I don't love my mother. I hate her!

Beating

When I was 20, I left home and went to live with a man. For days, my parents did not know where I was, but I called them on the phone and told them I was all right. I have never gone back to see my parents.

While my mother was treating me badly, I could have told my father that she was having sex with a man who was a farmer. I caught them having sex and my mother warned me that if I talked she would beat me. To this day, my father is not aware that his friend was having sex with his wife.

Throughout my life, I have wondered if it's because I am the darkest of the three why my mother treated me so badly. But, Pastor, the man I saw her having sex with is a black man, but people have it to say that he has money, so I suspect he was giving my mother money.

My boyfriend is paying for me to go to school and I love him and I will not leave him. He takes good care of me. He has bought me a washing machine, so I don't have to bend my back over a tub to wash. Thanks for reading my letter.

My boyfriend is 73 years old, but I am not going to leave him.

N.L

Dear N.L.,

He who feels it knows it. Some people would condemn you for having a relationship with this man, but you know what you have gone through. I am glad that you did not tell your father about your mother. Let that remain on her conscience. She knows that you saw her. I know that your boyfriend is much older than you, but if you are happy with him and he is happy with you, then it is nobody's business.

Discuss with him your future and please let me hear from you again.

Pastor