The Life I Couldn’t Yet See
It has been a long, long time since I’ve written here.
There is so much life between my last words and these ones. I’ve wondered where to begin, how to catch you up, and how to put into words things I’m still finding language for.
So perhaps I’ll start here: I’m glad to be writing again.
Since moving back to South Africa with Nic and the children, we’ve been finding our feet, building a home and settling into the everyday rhythms of life here. The children are growing. Sanctuary Ekhaya is growing too, and I’m learning what it takes to build work that matters to me while remaining present for the people I love.
There have been friendships to nurture, new opportunities to consider, and plenty of ordinary days filled with school, meals, work, washing and wondering how it is already bedtime.
There has been so much to be grateful for. There has also been exhaustion, uncertainty and the humbling experience of discovering that something you prayed for can still be difficult to carry.
Recently, I shared a little of that online. The tiredness that brings you to tears. The pressure of trying to manage everything. The discomfort of admitting that the work you feel called to hasn’t been as straightforward, or as financially rewarding, as you imagined.
The conversations that followed reminded me how much we sometimes need someone to say what we’ve been feeling quietly.
It made me want to write again.
Around the same time, I began looking through old photographs.
Me singing, when I thought music would be my forever career. Me hosting Deep and Meaningful, imagining where that work might lead. Me holding my babies. Cooking. Making a home. Living days whose place in the larger story I couldn’t yet see.
I kept looking at the woman in those pictures and thinking: you had no idea.
My life now was her unknown future.
This family, this work, this home, this version of me. Some things she hoped for. Others she wouldn’t have thought to imagine. And some she would have been frightened to know were coming.
I wouldn’t have written the story exactly this way.
There are beautiful parts I could never have planned. There are painful parts I still wish had been different. There are things I understand more clearly now, and questions that remain unanswered.
Looking at those photographs brought these words to mind:
“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”
I find comfort in that thought, although I can’t honestly say I’ve lived without being afraid.
I trusted God then. I was also scared sometimes.
I trust Him now. I still get scared.
What has changed, perhaps, is that I’m becoming more willing to bring Him the fear without first trying to make it sound like faith.
In those photographs of me singing, I see someone giving herself wholeheartedly to what she believed she would always do. With the talk show, I remember the hope of creating something meaningful and imagining a future around it.
I couldn’t have pictured all the ways my work would change. How creativity, storytelling, people and the desire to make a difference would continue to find expression through different kinds of work.
Knowing that now helps me hold my current plans with a little more openness. I can give them my best without assuming I know every form my calling will take.
Motherhood has asked for that openness too.
Before the surgery that helped me conceive Ndalo, there was hope and uncertainty. There were things I wanted deeply that I couldn’t make happen through determination alone.
Looking at photographs of myself holding Lwa, I see the beginning of another kind of learning. How to be his mother. How to love him well. How to understand the person growing in my care.
I’m still learning. I still ask God for wisdom as my children grow.
And Zizi will always be part of my story.
There is grief I continue to bring to God. There are questions I haven’t found answers to, and love that remains part of our family even when it isn’t visible in a photograph.
Trusting Him has had to include all of that.
Across marriage, friendships, changing work and moving countries, I’ve discovered how much of life has to be lived before it can be understood. Sometimes understanding comes slowly. Sometimes it remains out of reach.
Meanwhile, there is still a day to live. Someone needs dinner. A child needs your attention. A decision needs to be made.
And this is where “walking out my faith” has become very personal.
It happens in the middle of those things.
Sometimes it means taking a thoughtful next step before I feel completely ready. Sometimes it means asking for help or admitting that I’ve reached my limit. Sometimes it means having an honest conversation I’ve been avoiding.
Often, it means praying without finding the tidy ending.
“Lord, I’m grateful, but I’m tired.”
“I believe this work matters, but I’m worried.”
“I don’t know what to do next. Please help me.”
Being able to go to God with everything remains one of the greatest gifts of my life. It doesn’t always release the tension immediately. I can finish praying and still feel the weight of what needs to be done. But I’m reminded that He knows the whole of it, including the parts I struggle to explain.
In confessing my weakness, I find room to receive His strength. I’m learning to accept care, to rest, and to let the people who love me know when I’m struggling.
When I look back now, I can see that I entrusted a future I didn’t know to a God I was coming to know.
I’m living in that future today.
And there is another unknown ahead of me.
I still have hopes for my family, my work and the life we’re building. I still make plans. But I’m learning to bring God my expectations alongside my requests, and to remain open to a life that unfolds differently.
One day, I may look back at photographs of this season and recognise things I can’t yet see.
For now, I’m grateful to be here, writing again, telling the truth as gently as I can.
There is beauty in this life. There are things that are hard. And God continues to meet me in the middle of it.
This is how I’m walking out my faith.
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