MOTHER OF THE HEART

I was fourteen when I decided to follow the Lord.  However, before I made this decision my life was very hard.  My mother was a single parent who worked a lot in order to sustain me and I was also denied any contact with my father.  My mother thought she had control of everything.  She lived a bitter life and had a lot of hatred towards my father.  Bitterness controlled her life and I suffered the consequences.  I looked like my father so every time she would look at me it was like she was looking at my father.  Despite of growing up in this situation I wanted to have a normal life; to be able to talk to someone and to be able to go out.  However, she never had time for me.  The word “occupied” was the word I would always hear.  In my teen years I felt empty inside because I wanted my mother’s presence in my life but she never gave me the time.  This was my life until right before I turned fifteen.  

It was then that I met a lady named Mrs. Vera.  She was wonderful.  She would sit with me and teach me a lot of things.  She would give me advice and pointers for my life with a grand vision of faith.  I remember we would go out together and she would share everything with me.  She would call me daughter and she had a sweet voice.  She was very wise.  When she had to call my attention all she had to do was look at me.  I would know just by that glance that I had to act better and apply myself.  She would teach me with a lot of love.  Everything she did made me get closer to her.  I had a lot of affection towards her because I would see her like if she was my mother.  She cared for me.  She made sure I had eaten.  She would make sure I had shoes when I needed.  Basically, she would check to see how I was --- like a mother should.

I felt like a part of her family.  There was always happiness and her children considered me a sister.  The times we were together she would ask for my help and opinion.  She helped me mature.  By this time I was spending more time with them than I would at my home.  One day my mother was overcome by an uncontrollable jealousy and got very mad.  My mother knew that she wasn’t in my life the way a mother should be.  But my mother was my mother; with that statement she awoke something in me.  I knew she loved me.  However, with Mrs. Vera (mother of my heart) I was happy and as the days went by I grew even happier.  I would do things that I never thought I would be able to do.  I had confidence in myself and this would make me feel good.  Mrs. Vera, the mother of my heart, taught me that she was like this because of the encounter she had with God.  My mother hadn’t done the same for me because she hadn’t had that encounter yet.  I learned to love my mother and also to help her.  I tried to understand her.  I had this opportunity before she departed.  God used Mrs. Vera so I would know true love and she showed me how to use my faith to conquer.  She even presented me to my husband.  

In the end, she was a woman who taught me to take my first steps of faith.  Today I am very grateful for her and family which to this day provided a testimony of a Mother in Prayer for me.  I continued Mrs. Vera’s same teachings with my daughters.  I am a Mother in Prayer not just for my daughters but for the names of the sons and daughters that I receive for prayer just like Mrs. Vera did and still does for me.

Praying always,
 

Claudia Brito - Mother In Prayer - California
 

1235 Pacific Avenue  Long Beach, CA 90813