Dear Pastor,

I am from Jamaica and I am 18 years old. I have a problem with my ear and I want you to pray for me. I hate people who trouble deaf people. It hurts! I am in love with a man who is 20 years old and is deaf. I really love him, but my mother does not want me to be sweetheart with that guy. She doesn't know how much I love him. I have been with him for five years and he really cares for me. He really wants to marry me when I am older. I want the same thing too. My mom says I must find a better man. My sister loves my boyfriend.

Pastor, I can't leave him because he's better than my ex-boyfriend. I cry every day because I really love him, but my mom is the problem. Help me, please!

C.W., St. Catherine, Jamaica

Dear C. W.,

I hope that by now you have gone to see an ENT specialist. Concerning the young man with whom you are in love, I suggest that you keep the love that you have for him in your heart and don't allow the desire that you have to be with him cause a strain on the relationship with your mother. You see, you are still young and perhaps your mother is seeing something you have not seen, and only time will tell whether or not she is right or wrong.

If after the next three or four years you feel that you are still in love with this man and that both of you think that you can make life together, go for it. All I am trying to say is that right now, go easy. True love grows. Any love that is not growing is not true love. Be a good girl and keep your head high.

Pastor