Being A Christian Mother Is Hard Sometimes

The 'Feast of the Visitation' is a timely reminder of the poignancy of the untold joys and hopes that one has during the pregnancy contrasted with the harsh reminders almost everyday this week about what a cruel world it is that we live in where a stranger with hardly a flicker of conscience can steal your child away for good.

It was heart wrenching this week to watch April Jones's parents make the daily visit to court for the trial of the man who murdered their little girl. Their impact statement to the court in which they spoke about April's loss was heart breaking. When one hears of such grief caused by evil atrocities is it understandable that a loosening of the binds of the Christian faith could happen? This happened to my daughter. She started to question the existence of God and, as a secondary question, to question where God was if he existed when April was being murdered.

I tried my best to answer along the lines of 'people choose evil over God and goodness thus severing their ties with Jesus' and, sadly, it sounded trite even to me especially because the evil involved a little child. The reason it sounded trite to me is because my particular weak Christian spot is over the abuse and mistreatment of children. The 'evil versus good' argument works for me in matters of non-violent conflicts such as financial impropriety but when it comes to the victims being helpless little human beings I must confess that I fall flat on my face of faith.

Coral Jones with April Jones

Anyway, I trundled on with my mini-sermon about how God was looking after April now and pointed out the faith of Rev Kathleen Rogers who is the Anglican vicar in the village of Machynlleth where April Jones lived. Rev Kathleen Rogers, worked tirelessly to keep people going last year (when April went missing) through prayer and faith. She was on TV this week after the guilty verdict was announced and her faith was a consolation to me in my predicament.

The Christian motherhood narrative this week, for me, has been one of making a transition from being able to explain God's supreme being without much difficulty to encountering near-rigid obstacles in doing so as a response to my daughter growing up and questioning her world, including her faith.