Mel and her faith in “someone elses plan”

August 27, 2015Leave a comment

I really love this No Fear Just Faith series, I love how it means something different to everyone tasked with writing a piece. Today we have a blogger who I have mentioned here and here before, Melanie Blignaut, I love her realness and her views of princesses and cartoons and I am starting to forgive her for putting that stupid bubble guppies song in my head yesterday….

In my final year of varsity, while completing my BA (Dramatic Art) at Wits, I found myself uncertain about what I wanted to do next. After four years of drama, I knew that I didn’t particularly want a career in the industry.

Those four years had challenged my faith. I never doubted God or his love for me, but I wasn’t always consistent in living out my faith. Perhaps it was because I never really rebelled as a teen, but I made a lot of mistakes in those years.

I knew, at the end of it, that I needed to be serving God and not myself.

That December, I joined a group of young adults from our church who were running a life skills workshop at a local primary school.

During that week of the workshop, I felt God nudging me toward something, and I spoke to our youth pastor. I decided to commit the next year to serving on our church’s schools ministry team. What this entailed was teaching Life Orientation at three local primary schools, as well as helping run the Friday night junior youth group and July holiday programme.

It was a good year for me.

I reconnected with church friends I had drifted from while studying, and I also grew in my faith and desire to continue serving the Lord. God also gave me the desire to use my gifts for him, so that year a friend and I wrote and directed a Christmas play at church. This play was the starting point for our church’s drama ministry.

I started my year on the schools team not knowing what the future held. I had to give up all my plans, all my concerns and simply trust that God had a plan, he was in control, and he would provide all that I needed.

My biggest lesson that year was really seeing God’s faithfulness. I had to trust him to provide my financial support, for one thing, but also in a more personal, intimate capacity. I had to trust that he had placed me on the team, that he was working in me and through me, and that he would show me the next step to take.

As I look back on my life so far, I can see how he was guiding me all along, even when I wasn’t paying attention. I can see how has used the people he brought into my life to grow me, to encourage me, and to teach me.

While I regret some of the choices I made as a student, I don’t regret studying drama or going to Wits. I made great friends there. I met my husband there. My husband and I now run our church’s drama ministry together, which just goes to show that you never know how God is going to use you and the people he places in your life. His plans for my life have been so much better than mine!

{blog} Wind in a Letterbox

{blog} Confessions of a Zombie Mom

Melanie Blignaut Writing

Sometimes you can borrow faith…The Amelia story

July 9, 20152 Comments

Today’s No Fear Just Faith guest post comes from Amelia who blogs over at Suddenly A Mom. I met Amelia as a freelance writer when I was in charge of organising writers for ad features back in the day. I really liked her and used my power as her link to work to force her to be my friend, whahahahaha. But seriously there was something seriously cool about her and after reading her post I’m sure you will understand 🙂

I’ve never been a particularly fearful person. I’m not scared of lonely streets, bikers with tattoos, dogs with big teeth, or cars that drive fast. But, 2014 certainly taught me what being afraid was really about. If ever I had doubts…2014 cleared them up for me!

At the risk of making this a depressing journal of disaster, I’ll give a quick breakdown of what happened last year.

February – got divorced from my husband of nearly 10 years after he told me he was having an affair with a girl from work.

Also February – my stepmom (with whom I’m really close) nearly lost her life and spent weeks in hospital, followed by rehabilitation.

April – found a lump in my neck.

May – spent days and days in public hospitals (thanks to no medical aid), and spent almost all of my savings on medical tests.

June – first op to remove half my thyroid and 5 lymph nodes, all found to be cancerous and malignant.

July – second op to remove the rest of my thyroid.

August and September – in and out of hospital for tests, scans and appointments.

October – received radiation treatment.

November – called off a rushed engagement that seemed to be a good idea during all the drama, but was really quite a bad one.

In a timeline, it looks quite manageable. In real life, it wasn’t as easy. I was scared. But, there were so many rays of sunshine amidst it all, and these were where the real lessons came from.

Suddenly, the friends I’d shared with my now-ex-husband rallied together and cared for me in ways that I can’t imagine, proving their love and loyalty beyond description. I was literally taken into their homes, fed, hugged and distracted 24 hours a day. I wailed in their showers, had panic attacks on their kitchen floors, threw up in their toilets…all while they stood by patiently and told me that I was going to crawl out of this black hole and smile again one day.

And how right there were! I met the most amazing man with the most amazing daughter. They’d had their fair share (unfair, really) of sadness and tragedy. But, together, we have found such happiness and calm. I’m now a wife to a glorious person and, without a doubt, my very best friend. And I’m mom to a 6-year old who makes me laugh every day. I’m healthy (hold thumbs for check up!), happy and so grateful. I must admit that my faith in happy endings waned at times. But, maybe it was the faith that my amazing, special friends had that counted.

Faithful friends

Living with passion….Pravina’s story

June 4, 2015Leave a comment

How brave are you really? would you throw caution into the wind and follow your heart? Pravina Chetty did, at 20 she left her family and her country and ended up teaching English, dancing and DJing all around the world…this is the inspiring story of living by the beat of her own drum…

(People like this speak to my soul, experiences over expenses and passion over possessions)

I often forget how much I have done, seen or experienced until I look back, usually at a random facebook album or when I hear a song that triggers a memory.

The first real jump was when I dropped out of university to become a DJ. As a second year student, I day dreamed constantly about decks, vinyls and house tracks. It was more than a mere obsession. It took over my soul until I eventually dropped out and ended up moving to Taiwan. The motivation at that time was to teach English for a year and save up money for decks.

I got to Taiwan and year one had it’s fair share of ups and downs, being 20 at the time and moving to the other side of the world might not have been the smartest move to some people but to me it sounded great. Independence and the freedom to work on the dream. One year turned into three amazing years of teaching English, traveling South East Asia, dancing hip hop and yes of course, I got to fulfil my dj dream.

After three years, I decided to jump again. This time I moved back home to Port Elizabeth and back in with my parents. Now anyone who has ever moved out and moved back in with their parents will understand the struggle, the constant echo of ‘how did I end up here” running through your mind. Though it was what I needed at the time, a good base while I finished my almost forgotten degree. This time I was that student who maxed out library cards at almost every library in the city. The drive to get this degree and go fix the world was so strong that staying up until 5am to write papers after I got home from work, became normal.

Fast Forward to the end of the Bachelor’s degree, my mind, heart and soul was set on traveling the world and dancing salsa. But where and how and of course, with what money! Then like magic, I ended up in Florida working as a waitress in a country club. That first six months had myself and my family wondering if I had become truly insane. About to graduate University with a degree to work as a waitress in a country club, not exactly the idea my parents had in mind for me. This worked out because after that six months, I got another job in Chicago where there was a salsa congress. My passion fueled my three years stint in the states, to basically work so that I could dance and travel. Some say madness, okay most people say madness. After a fantastic three year adventure and dancing with some of the best in the world, I did it again. In the middle of my visa process for that sort after H1 7 year visa. I decided to leave. I needed to be home for the Cape Town salsa congress. So I packed up and left. I came back to South Africa with the intention of staying for 6 months before moving to Mexico. Six months became a year and now I am on year two.

As of this moment I am on jump number …I am not sure what number anymore, but I just quit my job this month and am on a new adventure in Marketing and inspiration, with a massive passion for all things travel. If you had told me at 16 that this was the life I was going to live, I would have laughed in your face. I have learnt that I can plan my perfect life, but my plans never go as I plan them. However they seem always work out so much better than anything that I could ever imagined.