When God Stopped:

It’s Saturday the 18th of March 2023, the time is 00h57 as I sit out on the deck watching the dolphins swim through the waves. I see the tracks they leave behind as their bodies soar through the bioluminescence in the water.

I can’t help but think about the last few days before we started out on this leg of the journey. We pulled into the Marina at False Bay Yacht Club on Tuesday wanting to fill up tanks and complete the last of our projects before untying the dock lines and setting off on the next leg of our journey.

As most boat projects go, we had more fixing than we had initially expected. All of the work was out on deck standing in the scorching heat of the sun. By the time the sun started setting on Thursday, I was in a full-blown flare-up and all my joints were in pain. My skin started breaking out into a typical lupus skin rash and I literally crawled into bed on all fours.

By Friday morning the pain was excruciating and making the long walk to the showers I knew that my day was going to be an uphill battle.

It is strange but as I walked hand in hand with Andre to the showers, I asked myself how could I possibly be of any use to God in this state. Every step I took was painful and by the time I reached the showers, I was wiping the tears from my face.

I looked around, hoping to wipe the tears without attracting too much attention. Unfortunately, that movement was just so painful that I caught a gasp in my throat before it turned into a loud embarrassing sobbing session. What I realised that Friday morning was that I don’t need to be strong or healthy to be used by God.

God knew how much I needed Him that morning. I needed to fall to my knees and worship Him through the brokenness of a body that just didn’t want to do what I need it to do. So when I walked into the bathroom, I was met by two very special women fighting their own battles. Crying their own tears. Women like me who needs a beacon of light to light the way. Like me, they felt that life in its bellowing mountains and its crashing waves had taken them on a path of pain that they could no longer walk.

We looked at each other, tears running down our faces and knew, God had just stopped, here in the clubhouse bathroom God found us and He wanted to remind us that our worth, was worth so much more than we could ever imagine.

It was at that moment that the three of us knelt inside a small shower cubicle, on our knees we took each other’s hand and we cried, three strangers, every broken heart different but the need the same. In that moment of surrender, we felt the love of a mighty King, the Everlasting one. The Lord, my banner “Jehovah-Nissi had just lifted me up from the woes of my situation into the joys of a living, loving Father.

She is Clothed in Strength and Honour

~ Proverbs 31:25

That morning, two women found God, not through my strength, but inside my brokenness through the tears of my pain. I had seen the light. God had an appointment with three women on a Friday morning, and the meeting place was irrelevant. My time schedule was not on the agenda. My dad wanted to remind me that in the desert, on a dirty Damascus road, He would do whatever it takes to bring His children home.

We as women have got a part in the salvation plan of God. We are called for a season like this for a time such as this. To stand up and wage war against the principalities of darkness. We serve a God that is in the details. Every situation can be turned into God’s glory.