Reflections by Nano

For the longest time I’ve had the desire to write my life story. Putting my feelings and thoughts on paper has always been a saving grace for me, a therapy of sorts, a healing balm for the soul.  When I feel overwhelmed, lost, and confused, I vomit that internal mess onto my journal (or laptop) and walk away somewhat free and purged of the pain. So, inevitably, writing became second nature to me growing up. The life-giving power of words fascinated me. I enjoyed reading and escaping into imagined worlds where nothing was impossible. There, I could become anyone and anything. I could be royalty, I could be unbroken, I could be free, I could be me. Stories can birth hope in us, stories can restore our souls, stories can awaken dead dreams and sleeping giants within us. Stories are life. There’s a story behind creation, there’s a story behind every invention, there’s a story behind everything, and our lives are stories waiting to be told. When I tell my story of healing and redemption...

There’s a parallel between how we view our earthly fathers and how we view God. A lot of people who have had traumatic experiences at the hands of their fathers or have faced rejection from them will, a lot of the time, struggle to relate to God, the Father, in a healthy way. We see God the way we see our earthly fathers; stripping God of His Sovereignty and His Agape Love that has the power to transform us and heal our hearts. Satan loves it when fathers reject their children, when they hurt them, and are outright bad fathers. He gets a kick out of dividing families, out of turning the hearts of the fathers away from their children and sowing hatred in the hearts of the children. This was the story of my life for a long time.  I hated my father for as long as I can remember. Even before I knew who he was, I hated him. I determined in my heart as a young girl that I don’t need him, and that I NEVER will because he rejected me. I even went as far as hating his daughter, my half-sist...

So let's take a break from the serious stuff and laugh a little. Apparently I'm too trusting of strangers and people in general. Some may even call me naive.😅 Due to this "innocence" of mine, I've been "swindled" and mugged more times than I can recall. Those stories will make for a good laugh one day, but the particular incident I was reflecting on today was one that took place in 2012. It was a Sunday morning and I was walking in town, about to take a taxi to church. I was attending church on Westville campus (UKZN) at the time. About 10 steps away from my taxi I get stopped by a young man with tattoos all over his arms; I can't recall what he said to stop me, but we started chatting. He told me that he just came out of prison and that he wants to turn his life around but he's struggling to find a job etc. Now, being a young Christian who was on fire for the Lord, I immediately thought, "this can't be a coincidence, this is God sendin...

So I understand this blog post might not be as popular as the ones with sordid details of my dismal love life, but it's a MUST that I share this! I hope it encourages someone. I've had an incredible start to 2022; I couldn't be happier. I'm experiencing God's grace in such a sweet way, I literally think the word "sweet" describes this current season perfectly. There's been a lot of changes (all good) that have taken place in my life over the past few months. As much as I had a great year last year and the year before that, I always knew that something was missing; I was living my best life yet my soul wasn't completely satisfied. And I've been a church girl for a long time now, so I know that when my personal relationship with God is rocky, I live an incredibly carnal life, finding pleasure in "boys and booze" as I've jokingly mentioned in a previous blog post. So when this year began, and as I was taking stock of my life and en...

Popular culture brainwashes us into living unauthentic lives for the sake of being cool or being accepted by people who couldn’t care less about you. I’d like to offer a different narrative. Where the world encourages destructive behaviours and attitudes such as “be cool, or act cool”, “pretend you don’t care” or “tone down your excitement”; I’d like to propose that this kind of thinking is what destroys authenticity. We trade in honesty for likes. We give up our truth to gain a false sense of respect and affirmation from people who don’t even know the real you. The world or popular culture will have you sacrificing your soul for fake validation and meaningless attention. We’ve become so accustomed to portraying a cool or “acceptable” version of ourselves that many of us don’t know or appreciate our true selves. We’ve become casualties of destructive societal norms. After coincidently having a few conversations relating to authenticity and pretentiousness, I reflected on the belo...

 I’m turning 32 tomorrow! And I’m soooo excited for this next chapter of my life. In my blog description I write that, “I’m a woman who’s hoping to find love and stability as I enter my thirties…” Well, I’m proud to say that I’ve found it. 😊 I’ve found love and stability within myself. At the beginning of this journey, and for most of my life, I was looking outwardly for these things. While looking in all the wrong places, I found a lot of wrong things, wrong people, wrong habits. I found a lot that didn’t serve me. As soon as I started looking within, the answers started coming, the healing started coming, courage and hope filled my heart and life. As soon as I began to celebrate the good in me and the good around me, more blessings and joy came my way. Now, there’s a lot that I still want out of life, there’s so much I still want to do and accomplish; I feel like I’ve hardly begun living, yet I’ve lived such a full life already. And I’m really excited for the future! But ...