She was married at 15 years of age, and widowed with six children when her youngest set of twins was 6 months old. She married even before her older sister, primarily because of her unusual and coveted coloring…blonde hair and blue eyes. Being married as a teen in not unusual in her family. Her mother married at 14 years of age; her neighbor is a great-great grandmother and still living. (She has grandchildren of grandchildren!)
This has profoundly affected her view of marriage, children and life in general. Her relationship with her husband was more like that of a father with a child. She was disciplined for chewing gum in public and given rewards for good behavior.
When she first gave birth, she was still in her mid-teens, and went directly to her mother’s house and held on to her physically all the way to the hospital. After giving birth, she refused to hold or look at her children; her mother would care for them for the first several weeks. Several pregnancies later and with a husband ill and bed-ridden, she took pills that she hoped would abort the babies (twin girls.) God spared them, and she drove herself to her mother’s in the middle of the night in order to literally drag her mother to the hospital for the last time.
Now that her daughters are getting older, she doesn’t want them to be married young. She is looking for someone who is financially stable and fair in coloring to match her children. When she asked us what we were looking for in sons-in-laws for our daughters, she shook her head when we said wealth and nationality and looks were not at the top of our list. We were asking Jesus for men who love Him more than they love our daughters, who will love them as Christ loved the church and gave His life for her, who will lead their families as they follow Jesus.
Pray for young Berber girls who step into mother-hood so early. Pray that they will know how incredibly precious they are to Jesus, not because they are physically beautiful, but because they are made in His image. Pray for the children of these young brides, that they will know that they too are precious, even if they hear their mother speaking of trying to abort them. Pray that God, in His mercy, will bring them to believers…that they will see godly marriages that are a picture of Christ and the church, and that they will know the beauty of being loved by Jesus as their Bridegroom who treasures them and gave His life for them.
