WILL THE WORLD BECOME FLESH IN US | KAIROS GLOBAL | MARCH 2024

Author: Silvy Santhosh

Intro: Spiritual mother to many, Silvy Santhosh shares how the Lord blessed her family with children. 

I have always loved little babies since my childhood. Merry, Appu, and many neighbourhood children used to come to our home most of the days. I loved playing with them, feeding them and dressing them up. When my sister had children, I loved them as my own. Years later while studying BSN at Lisie Hospital in Kochi, my favourite rotations were the New-born Nursery and Paediatric floor for the same reason. During the labour room rotation, I would bless the new-borns born into my arms.

After we got married, I shared my wish with my husband: our family should be a large family. It was not a surprise for him as he was the seventh of eight children. That was one of the major influential factors when I heard about him for the first time. We had an arranged marriage.

We began our married life in prayer. We would go for Holy Mass daily from the very next day of starting our life together. Our first child was born 10 months after we got married. We used to pray for a name during my pregnancy and God gave us two beautiful names: Solomon and Sophia. In those days in India, we could only know the sex of the baby at the time of birth. This was to prevent the abortions of female children. We then realised that Sophia meant ‘wisdom’ and Solomon meant ‘peace’ and was the king of wisdom.

My first child was born at the same hospital where I studied nursing. The name of the doctor who delivered her was also Sophia. Our first daughter, Sophia, grew so happily with our family. I used to think that she would be the first of 7-8 children. But it was only later that we realised that the divine plan for our family was different.

The word pro-life had only one meaning in my dictionary at that time: to give birth to and raise many children. But in the later journey of family life, I realised that it was not the pro-life way that Jesus expected from our family life. My mission entrusted by God was to raise so many spiritual children for his kingdom!

A great responsibility was later given to me by the Lord of Life! So many spiritual children were born to me after that. It was through my work, I became a spiritual mother to so many children. My main responsibility as a paediatric CVICU nurse and later as a CVICU paediatric nurse practitioner was to take care of the children before and after heart surgery. Each paediatric cardiac patient had a 50 percent chance of dying during ICU stay. When each baby was admitted, it was our responsibility to teach the parents about their baby's cardiac defect and what surgery was going to be done for their child. As I teach them the details of surgery with the ease of explaining simple plumbing, I occasionally look into the faces of those parents, and many of them would not be paying attention. They would stare at the wall without any idea and many times I have seen tears rolling down their cheeks. I have cried with them many days. A 30-minute education session often turns into one or two hours. I used to pray with them and promised to pray for their baby’s health. After work, I would rush to Holy Mass to fulfil my promise to them. Those days I learned that Jesus was the greatest physician.

Thus the number of spiritually adopted children increased in my life and the number of children in my intercession book has gone up.

Those were the years I realised how motherhood could be experienced without having to bear a baby in the womb. I learned that motherhood experience is not a sum of some hormonal changes that happen in your body during pregnancy. Each and every girl is born with a natural love for life. That's why mostly girls take care of their younger brothers and sisters just like their moms.

Motherhood is not a restraint to any woman's life or choices or freedom as some anti-pro-life groups think or write. It is such a great blessing. Nothing in this world can be compared to the opportunity of participating in creation with our own Creator. When her own baby starts crying at night, a mother wakes up at the same moment without any alarm. Remember, this mother was an ordinary girl who would complain of being sleepy even after sleeping for 10-12 hours. By the time a father hears the cry of a new-born, it may sometimes be too late. It's not their fault at all. This is because of the supernatural power of motherhood which is given to us by God: it has the ability to bypass any computer technology and alarm system, yes it is the power of an umbilical cord connection. So shouldn't we women be proud of it?

I was childless for 10 years after having my first daughter. I wanted to be the mother of many children, but I was gifted with only one daughter for many years.

One day I was admitting one of my cardiac patients after cardiac surgery, his name was Nathan. When he was admitted to the ICU, only his grandmother was with him. His mom was still recovering from the C-section. It was when I talked to the grandmother that I realised that I had taken care of his brother years ago as a nurse. His brother's name was Samuel. He was admitted to our ICU for a year and his heart chambers and valves were very complex. Despite all of our best efforts, the Heavenly Father called him back to heaven on his first birthday! Years later, God gave his parents another child who was also born with a heart defect. They said yes to this pregnancy knowing that the unborn child would have a disability. It seems like eyes have not seen and ears have not heard what God is preparing for those who say yes to life.

When I spoke to Nathan's grandmother, her faith gave me lots of hope, usually the opposite happens. She told me of the faith journey behind the name of the deceased Samuel. His father and mother had been married for a long time and had no children. After going through many infertility treatments, they started to read Scripture and started claiming the Word in their life. In the second chapter of the first book of the prophet Samuel, there is a song of thanksgiving sung by Hannah (Samuel 2:1-10). Samuel's parents began to recite this prayer regularly and started claiming it in their family. Those words of God took flesh in them and God blessed them with a sweet little baby and they named him Samuel after Prophet Samuel.

He stayed in our CVICU throughout his whole life and made our lives merrier and hopeful with his giggles and resilience even after life threatening codes and surgeries. His parents never seemed shattered by his life, but they always had a joy on their face and could see them many times comforting the new parents of newly diagnosed cardiac babies in the waiting room.

Recollecting memories of Samuel from his grandmother gave me great peace in my heart. The faith of the parents of a child who died at the age of one increased my faith tenfold: I can only say that the work of our Lord who conquered death on Easter day is still going on among us today.

I came back home that day and took the Holy Bible in my hand and started reading Hannah's hymn very carefully. Even though I had read and heard these verses many, many times during Christmas time, the same verses looked different to me and I read it just as I was reading them for the first time. My husband and I started reading these verses every day and it became a part of our life. I turned from singing Hannah's song of thanks to praising God with Hannah for all the children God was going to give us from heaven. The verse I prayed for this child, and the LORD granted my request (Samuel 1:27) has become a part of our life. This Word is still written on the wall of our bedroom.

Meanwhile, Samuel's younger brother Nathan was discharged within a week after the surgery. He recovered very well by God’s grace. I went to see them in the cardiology ward and thanked his parents and grandmother for the faith they shared with me.

During Holy Mass every day, I began to bless my unborn child with my hand on my belly after receiving Holy Communion (I was not pregnant at that time). During these years, several prayed for us. Our parents, siblings, priests, aunts, uncles, friends and so on.

Through daily Holy Communion, the Holy Word, and the intercession of many, God was making unbelievable changes in my body, soul, and heart.

And everything that happened after this has been something medical science never could find a rationale for or evidence. My second daughter was born when my eldest daughter was ten years old. After another three years, the Lord of Life accompanied our family by giving us another son.

Today I am a mother of three children as well as a spiritual mother of many babies! John 1:14 says The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. This is still happening among us today, at this moment. Let us accept the WORD – JESUS with faith and trust. Let's allow him to be born in our hearts and bear fruits.

A Paediatric Nurse Practitioner, Silvy Santhosh loves spending time with Jesus in the Eucharist in her free time and writing about God’s love. She loves to be with children, play with them and read to them about His love. She lives in Dallas, USA with her husband and three children.