Monthly Archives: July 2026

GOOD STILL SPEAKS…CHILDREN- 4

Christian Life, ,

Marriage, for me meant children. I wanted babies…but my first baby to a while to come. Finally, he made his appearance in 1967. I had named him long before his birth and…on the day he arrived, after a very short labour for a first-time mum…nothing could have been greater than the joy I felt when I held my Andrew in my arms. 

Another three sons arrived in quick succession, four boys in four years and nine months. From a woman with empty arms, longing for a family, I morphed into a frantically busy mother of four sons under the age of five. Those years slipped by in a flurry of cooking, cleaning, and caring for my husband and lively family. 

I think that my husband took to doing his “ministry” away from home as much as possible during those years, to escape his fathering role. He opted out, first because he had no idea how to be a father…his own father had finally rejected him years before when he was in Bible College…and second, because raising his sons scared him and he distanced himself from them as much as he could. They were there, but he left them to me to handle. 

The outcome was that I was building up a head of steam inside…a volcano of anger and frustration that threatened to blow from sheer overload! 

One day, the volcano erupted! I was 35 weeks pregnant with my desperately-longed-for daughter. One of my sons defied me at the breakfast table. My pent-up anger exploded. I grabbed him by the hair and pulled him from the table. 

I have no recollection of what I did next. I only remember falling in my knees at my bedside after the family had left and sobbing out my irrational rage to God. 

Later that morning, I drove to an appointment with my gynae for my regular pre natal check up. She expressed concern that the foetal heart sounded distant and faint. I thought nothing of it but…on my drive home, I was aware of an unusual feeling, as though the baby had slumped down in my womb. As a midwife, I was acutely aware of and followed the progress of my baby by the movement inside. 

There was no feeling of life that day…not the usual thump or flutter that I so enjoyed…those tiny interactions between my baby and me. Nothing! Just an eerie stillness and the alarm that grew as the hours passed. 

Finally, when I could handle the apprehension no longer, I made a hurried visit to my local GP to check the foetal heart. Nothing! No a sound! No familiar beat of a healthy little heart! Only the rhythmic woosh-woosh of blood rushing through my uterine  vessels. 

My GP immediately called my gymae and sent me off to the maternity hospital. After a few hours of induced labour, my daughter was born…beautiful, perfect, but wearing the mottled purple colour of death. I lifted my drugged head to take a quick glimpse of her before she was whipped away to be prepared for the mortuary. 

My baby was born in the era when it was thought wise to protect mothers from the sight and experience of bearing a dead baby. No closure! No “goodbye”! No final feel of her tiny body close to mine! Only empty arms and a shattered heart!

After the birth, I was wheeled into a private ward close to the general ward where mothers had their babies in cribs alongside their beds…to bond and care for until their discharge. This practice changed the practice, during my training year, of keeping the babies in the nursery, only to be taken to mothers at feeding time. 

My room was close enough to hear the babies crying…adding to the pain of my own loss…like digging a knife into an already deep, bleeding wound but…greater than the pain of loss was the agonising awareness of guilt. I had inadvertently killed my own baby by my angry outburst. I could not escape the truth. It overwhelmed me like a dark, threatening storm cloud. 

As I lay there listening to baby wails, I felt the weight of my guilt. I offered no rational reasons…no excuses. Then, in the midst of my deep despair, I began to feel, creeping over my whole being a warmth, as if I were being wrapped in a soft, protective blanket…a Presence…forgiveness flooding my heart…peace driving out the guilt…quietness in my spirit that completely replaced the agony of my sin. I felt God’s love so real, so overwhelming, so liberating, that I was free, free inside from the crushing weight of what I had done. The memory still remained…but not the pain. 

God had spoken…not in judgement…not even in words. He  was there. He had been there all the time but now…He had made Himself real, His own presence the greatest word of all…wordless but speaking of His deep love and forgiveness, of His unfailing mercy and grace. 

I was discharged from the hospital that morning…carrying with me the memory, but not the pain, of my loss. So transformed was my experience…from deep grief to deep gratitude…that I was free to reassure, first my doctor and then my friends and family, that I was not suffering from delayed hysteria.

There is a past script, a closure to this story. A few weeks later, in the early spring, I was preparing for a move to another town. I took boxes of unwanted clutter to the dump which happened to be close to the cemetery. On an impulse, I walked through the area where babies and children were buried, hoping to find the spot where my little angel lay. My husband and I had been debating whether to put a memorial stone over her grave or not. 

For some reason, despite my searching, I could not identify her resting place.  As I walked up the path, through the trees in fresh spring growth, I felt a whisper in my spirit. “She is not here!” Of course, her tiny body lay in the ground, a seed sown in death but she was with the Lord, waiting in hope for the moment of glorious resurrection. 

I left that city and the child I had so deeply desired, in peace. I carried with me the assurance of a love so deep and so real that nothing in the future…and there were many deep and stormy waters to navigate on my way to the Father…that I forever treasure what I learned from the loss and the love that sustained and still sustains me every moment of every day. 

To be continued

GOD STILL SPEAKS…NEW LIFE – 3

Christian Life, ,

After my new birth, my life took a dramatic turn…not outwardly because I was still pressing on towards the end of my school days and the beginning of my life’s adventure…but inwardly because my emptiness and  despair had given way to meaning and purpose. 

I was new inside. I found real friends…those who had been transformed at the same camp by the same grace that had changed my life. We found each other, at school and outside school. We stuck together to pray, encourage, and even play music together. We formed a group that played piano accordion and loved to play the gospel ditties we learned on a Friday night at our youth group meetings. 

Those were halcyon days. We were learning the basics of our new life and laying a solid foundation for the time when we would  move on, separated from the security of a close-knit group, to face the big, dangerous world alone… away from home and friends. 

My future loomed ahead. What next? I was learning to look to the Lord for guidance and direction. One door closed, another opened. At the tender age of seventeen, I left home to begin a career in nursing at the Carinus Nursing College in Cape Town. Alone, a vulnerable young teenager in a vast, unknown city, I clung to the Lord and the faith that was still forming inside me. 

I look back on those days and marvel that the Lord kept me and connected me to friends who helped to steady me until I found my feet in a hostile world. 

I became part of a small church in the suburb where I worked, which I attended faithfully during the years of my training. Although there were no dramatic moments, no specific times when God spoke clearly in my heart, I was deeply conscious of His guiding hand, keeping my resolve to follow Jesus and stay faithful to Him alive and intact despite many tests and temptations. 

“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them away from me, for my Father has given them to me, and he is more powerful than anyone else. No one can snatch them from the Father’s hand.”

‭‭John‬ ‭10‬:‭27‬-‭29‬ ‭NLT‬‬

The highlight of my three and a half years in Cape Town was the way the Lord honoured me. I had resolved, especially during the months of formal theory training at the college, never to study on a Sunday. When I reflect now, I realise how legalistic I was about observing Sunday…but my heart was sincere. I was determined to honour the Lord…and He, in turn, honoured me…

“But I will honor those who honor me, and I will despise those who think lightly of me.”

‭‭1 Samuel‬ ‭2‬:‭30‬ ‭NLT‬‬

I became the darling of the college and my training hospital in my final year, after I wrote my final examinations…winning the Kenneth B Gloag gold medal for the highest marks in the three groups of finalists in the country for that year, 1961…as well as the gold medal for my achievement in my own training college in Cape Town…

…but the glory was soon forgotten as the days passed. I left Cape Town behind, and returned home to complete the two months before I could be registered as a trained nurse when I turned 21. I worked under supervision as an unregistered staff nurse for three months in my small hometown hospital before I began the next phase of my journey into the unknown. 

My heart was set on God. I wanted to do His will. Two doors were open to me…Bible College or training as a midwife…the logical completion of my nursing career. Did I hear the Lord speak? No, not in clear words. 

I applied to both institutions and was accepted by both! What now? I decided on Bible College and, at the beginning of 1962, I entered the protected world of Christian fellowship and instruction. I was there for three-and-a-half-years where I completed two diplomas, one from the Bible Institute of South Africa (affectionately known as BI), and the London Bible College (known as LBC). 

In the course of this season, my life took another dramatic turn…i was engaged and finally married a fellow student in 1965. Let me say, with a measure of shame, that I followed my heart and my emotions rather than a clear directive from the Lord…and lived to face the consequences for years to come. 

I had only known my husband-to-be in the protected environment of a Christian college but not in the rough-and-tumble of the real world. 

I was learning, not from the mouth of the Father, but from the school of hard knocks, that choices and decisions have long-term consequences from which there is no escape. My passion for the Lord and His will began to be diluted in the struggle to survive in a relationship which became a power struggle rather than a union. 

Neither of us in this partnership understood what marriage was meant to be. We came together both carrying baggage and unfinished business, which was a recipe for disaster. We neither recognised nor understood that our issues would become a chasm that would eventually become uncrossable. My husband’s unresolved anger and my debilitating insecurity clashed incessantly until I, thankfully, moved out when I was driven out. 

Suffer as I did, my four precious sons, so young and damaged by the conflicts, bore the brunt of this collapse. They left home after school days, one by one, with their own baggage and unfinished business in their hearts, tarnishing their young lives and perpetuating the brokenness of their parents. 

Let me say, at this point, that however chaotic the early life of my sons had been…the crux of the matter was that they, like their own father before them, had never been truly fathered by a loving human father. Fatherless children, their father present in body but absent in real fathering, created insecure and angry sons. 

God had warned His own people centuries before, that the sins of the fathers would continue down generations, eventually producing a society of people riddled with sin. 

“I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations. I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But I do not excuse the guilty. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children and grandchildren; the entire family is affected— even children in the third and fourth generations.”

‭‭Exodus‬ ‭34‬:‭7‬ ‭NLT‬‬

From one foolish error…not listening for the voice of God when I made a life-changing choice…out of a false and romantic notion about marriage rather than the careful choice of a truly godly partner, I brought upon the next generation years of painful “unlearning” about what real life in Christ is about. 

How I praise the Lord for grace…for His loving intervention that turned failure and pain into mercy and new life. Every difficult day, every moment of emotional suffering has become for me and for my sons, a doorway into God’s grace that we would not have missed for anything.

We are still learning.  The lessons never end. We still bump into old issues…we still uncover old wounds but…God’s supply of grace never ends. The more grace we enjoy, the more we are able to comfort others by pointing them to the grace that has comforted us. 

I am grateful to testify that three of my four sons have also become a part of God’s forever family. One has lost his way but…I have God’s promise…a clear word that He spoke into my heart…that He has my son on a long leash. 

In episodes to come, God has spoken, time and again, through pictures and words…keeping His wandering and wavering daughter moving…albeit hesitant, uncertain, often unbelieving and confused…in the right direction…towards and not away from Him. 

To be continued

GOD STILL SPEAKS…TRANSFORMED -2

Christian life, ,

Sunday, 1st 1956…the day God spoke…the day that changed me forever…but let me go back a few weeks. 

My dad has decided to sell our home but this entailed my family living in a hotel for three months while our new house was being built. 

My room in the hotel was at the back of the building, a small room with a window facing north. 

I was fifteen years old, a lonely teenager with few friends but… I had a deep emptiness inside that not even a friend could fill. 

One morning before school, in my desperation, I knelt at my bedside, with the warmth of the sun on my back, and I prayed. I had no idea how to pray so I prayed the only words I knew…the Lord’s Prayer. 

God was listening. He heard my heart, not my words. 

A few months later, the answer came…not in neon lights or a booming voice. It came at an Easter camp, organised for the young people in our area by the leaders of my church denomination…at a seaside resort, under canvas…rough and rustic. 

Our meeting place was a marquee tent…the floor, the field grass…our seating, rows of hard, uncomfortable chairs. Our preacher was a short man of Scandinavian origin, his subject taken from Isaiah 53. The title of his message was,”I wore my oldest shirt”!

It was Sunday, April 1…April Fools’ Day on the secular calendar but…not for me. I have no recollection of his sermon…not the words…not the content… not the point of what he said but… the Holy Spirit was drawing me. After the message, at the preacher’s invitation, I knelt on the rough field grass at my chair and allowed the Spirit to finish what He started. 

I don’t know what the Holy Spirit said. I don’t know what He did but…I stood up in that marquee tent a changed person. The deep inner loneliness was gone. In its place was a peace, a certainty that I was new inside, a joy that made no sense except that I knew I was a different person. 

The Bible tells me what had happened in those moments on my knees. 

“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”

‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭5‬:‭17‬ ‭NLT‬‬

I was “in Christ”.  I belonged to Jesus. I was a new person. My old life had gone. 

“Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.” …Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.”

‭‭John‬ ‭3‬:‭3‬, ‭5‬ ‭NLT‬‬

I was born again…of the Holy Spirit. I was born into God’s kingdom. 

“Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus.”

‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭2‬:‭1‬, ‭4‬-‭6‬ ‭NLT‬‬

I was alive. God raised me to new life from sin and death because of His mercy. He didn’t snuff me out because of my sin. Instead, He answered my prayer and made me His own beloved daughter. He gave me His love, His joy, and His peace…a lasting legacy that has never left me…not even in the darkest moments of my life…

Wow! Did I know it! I was so filled with joy that I could not stop talking about what God had done. 

Seventy years have come and gone since that day…seventy years of learning to follow Jesus…of failing, falling, and getting up again, wiping the dust off my knees, the guilt of my soul, and going on. 

In those seventy years, my story has many episodes, many times that God has spoken…in clear words…in my spirit, words that rebuked…explained…redirected…even forgave, comforted and reassured me after I  had fallen…hard…!

There are two promises I hold dear, promises that have steadied me in dark times…times of failure, loss, rejection, betrayal, deep hurt, and despair. 

“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭28‬-‭29‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Nothing happens without God’s purpose…

“And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”

‭‭Philippians‬ ‭1‬:‭6‬ ‭NLT‬‬

God always finishes what He started. 

And so, the journey into my new life began. Was I an “April Fool” on that day? A thousand times “No!”

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

“This famous quote comes from the American missionary Jim Elliot. He penned it in his journal in October 1949, years before he was martyred while attempting to share the gospel in Ecuador.” (Source: Google AI)

To be continued

GOOD STILL SPEAKS…SUNDAY SCHOOL DAYS – 1

Christian Life, ,

In recent days, I have listened to many stories of ex-Muslims who have been transformed by encounters with Jesus…sometimes in dreams, sometimes in person, and sometimes even in death. Every meeting with Jesus that has led to profound change, has ended with an instruction…

”Tell your story!” 

Of course, we have all have a story to tell because, every time we meet Jesus and He speaks, He sets us on course for a whole new life…a new season… and a new episode in our own story…

…and God still speaks. I know He speaks because I’ve heard His voice…not in my ears from the outside but in my spirit on the inside, many times.  He has told me things that have shaken me…changed my thoughts…and beliefs…and altered the direction of my life. So, I want to tell you some bits of my story…

…in episodes…not in one continuous tale but in a series of encounters on specific occasions that corrected…adjusted…explained…and instructed me…by a loving Father who is determined to keep me on track until I reach my destination…forever… in His realm…with Himself. 

My story may seem disjointed. I tell the highlights as I remember them because each one may touch you,  my reader, in some significant way. 

My first story is about a tiny child who went to Sunday School long before she could read or write. God was preparing me for a lifetime of living and growing under His care and authority. My earliest memories of those times on a Sunday morning were…learning to recite the Lord’s Prayer. 

Why was this so important to me? This seemingly random experience was the link between God and me…the bridge I crossed on the day my life changed forever. 

There are two things that have been my anchor throughout my life and more so as I get older…prayer and the Word of God. God began to lay the foundation in those very early days when I had no idea of what He had in store for me…sitting on a little wooden chair, my legs too short to reach the floor, listening to stories I thought were fairy tales…and memorising the Lord’s Prayer. 

Only as I grew order did I realise that those stories were about a real-life person called Jesus. My heart was slowly beginning to awaken…the first glimmers of light in a life that was already darkening with the thoughts and works of a sinful nature with which I was born. 

My Sunday School days extended from toddler days through childhood, adolescence, teenage, and into young adulthood. Those Sundays paralleled my school days because, as I learned my lessons in school, so I was learning the Word of God in Sunday School. Every year, faithfully, without a break, I wrote the Scripture exams prepared and provided by my denominational authority. How grateful I am that I was laying down, by God’s grace, a solid foundation of Bible truth upon which I built my life in later years. 

Then, one day, as a teenager, all the fragments, the strands of my life up to that point, came together. As I reflect now, I see how gracious was the hand of God in my life. Sin had spread its tentacles deep into my soul already. No, I was not an evil child. I was obedient and compliant in my home and at school but…in secret…I was stained. 

God could have rightfully snuffed me out…but He didn’t. Instead, He was moving me, slowly, inexorably, towards Himself. Guilt, shame, fear, could have alienated me from Him forever…but loneliness drew me to Him…and the early in my toddler life, I was learning the Lord’s Prayer…the trigger. 

Jesus promised…

“All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.”

‭‭John‬ ‭6‬:‭37‬ ‭NIV‬‬

…and

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

‭‭John‬ ‭6‬:‭44‬ ‭NIV‬‬

How mysterious are God’s ways! Young and ignorant as I was, the Father drew me…and I began to follow…until the moment everything changed…in an instant…forever…on a day I can never forget…the day the world calls “April Fool’s Day”. 

To be continued

ROMANS…POSTSCRIPT – 28

Bible Study, ,

“And now may God, who gives us his peace, be with you all. Amen.”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭15‬:‭33‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Paul’s magnificent letter finally comes to an end. He has done all the explaining he needed to do. He has done all the rebuking and exhorting his knowledge of the people of the Roman church demanded. He has shared his plans and goals with God’s people and urged them to participate in his ministry through prayer. So, finally, he signs off with a prayer and a final affirmation that his words were truth…”Amen”! Not a period at the end of his letter. Not an “over-and out” signal that his communication was complete. “Amen! What I have written is firm, sure, and the truth.”

Then, Paul adds a surprising postscript…a whole chapter of greetings, affirmations, and commendations. Even though the church at Rome was not a part of his ministry…yet…he knew many of the members by name, by character, and by function. In his typical “Paul” way, he did not forget to greet them with affection and to remember their ministry for the kingdom of God. 

There follows a long list of warm and personal greetings…and noticeably including the names of many women who served side-by-side with many men on equal footing in the church. Paul makes no apology from commending them and encouraging recognition and partnership with them in their faithful work for the Lord. 

It must have been quite an adjustment for Paul to make…to follow the example of his Master who had restored to women the dignity and respect with which, and the purpose for which they were originally created…in His treatment of them.  Culture had taught Paul that women were less than men…relegated to second-class humans and of less value and importance than men. 

Jesus had turned that notion on its head by giving women their rightful place in their world. Now Paul followed by acknowledging the women who played a major role in the fellowship and ministry of the church in Rome. 

“I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is a deacon in the church in Cenchrea. Welcome her in the Lord as one who is worthy of honor among God’s people. Help her in whatever she needs, for she has been helpful to many, and especially to me….Give my greetings to Mary, who has worked so hard for your benefit… Give my greetings to Tryphena and Tryphosa, the Lord’s workers, and to dear Persis, who has worked so hard for the Lord.”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭16‬:‭1‬-‭2‬, ‭6‬, ‭12‬ ‭NLT‬‬

And so, there followed name after name of men and women whom Paul honoured and greeted with affection. 

Paul’s final words, in this letter, were words of warning against those who deliberately caused division in the fellowship. Since unity was the goal, division was a real danger to God’s people. 

“And now I make one more appeal, my dear brothers and sisters. Watch out for people who cause divisions and upset people’s faith by teaching things contrary to what you have been taught. Stay away from them. Such people are not serving Christ our Lord; they are serving their own personal interests. By smooth talk and glowing words they deceive innocent people.”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭16‬:‭17‬-‭18‬ ‭NLT‬‬

What can do more damage in any fellowship than false teaching? No one can mess with the foundations of the faith without causing great harm to those who are drawn away. 

Paul has made clear, in his writings, that God has entrusted to His people everywhere and throughout time, a sacred deposit. It is a body of truth…to be guarded and kept intact…to be lived…and to be passed on to the next and every succeeding generation. He urged Timothy to “guard the deposit”, sometimes called “the faith”…the complete and all-inclusive body of teaching upon which we depend for life and godliness. 

No-one may add to or subtract from this package of truth without incurring serious consequences. 

“And I solemnly declare to everyone who hears the words of prophecy written in this book: If anyone adds anything to what is written here, God will add to that person the plagues described in this book. And if anyone removes any of the words from this book of prophecy, God will remove that person’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city that are described in this book.”

‭‭Revelation‬ ‭22‬:‭18‬-‭19‬ ‭NLT‬‬

A final greeting and a prayer conclude this letter. Despite all the tests, trials, hardships, and battles in this life, Satan is already a defeated foe…and the followers of Jesus will have their  day when the devil is finally dispatched through the victory Jesus won for them. 

“The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. May the grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.”  

Romans 16:20 NLT

Paul’s Gentile readers had every reason to rejoice because their salvation was no afterthought.  God had them in His sights before time began. 

“Now all glory to God, who is able to make you strong, just as my Good News says. This message about Jesus Christ has revealed his plan for you Gentiles, a plan kept secret from the beginning of time. But now as the prophets foretold and as the eternal God has commanded, this message is made known to all Gentiles everywhere, so that they too might believe and obey him. All glory to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, forever. Amen.”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭16‬:‭25‬-‭27‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Finally, letter to the Roman church comes to an end…for Paul and Tertius, Paul’s “ghost writer”…but not for every reader in every succeeding generation. The message lives on…the power of the gospel still works…ands only eternity will reveal the impact of Paul’s words to a congregation in Rome, written in the first century but still alive today.