Jul 294 min read

July: Birth Month Reflections

In July I celebrated my 35th birthday. As usual, I found myself quite reflective as I looked back at how far I've come in my life in order to reach this significant milestone.

An emotional memory

One of the things I reflected on was how I almost didn't live this long, considering that I almost drowned when I was eleven years old - a few months before my mother's passing. We had gone on a school outing while I was in boarding school, on a hot summer day, for a swim in the caledon river. Unsupervised, my friends and I had decided to go look for a part of the river where the water was less shallow so that we could "actually swim". Unbeknownst to them, I couldn't actually swim, and unbeknownst to me, walking in an unfamiliar muddy river was not the best way to learn how to swim. While walking with them, a bit ahead of the pack, I happened to step into the deep side of the river and was immediately swept up by the water and proceeded to drown. As God would have it, there was a tree branch bending over the river just ahead of me and two of my friends (Lineo Nteso and Mphosi Letsoela), devised a plan for one of them to jump into the river to push me up when I go underneath the branch, while the other grabbed hold of me to use the branch to save my life. The plan worked. And just as I whispered to myself to just give up fighting for my life - I felt myself pulled out of the water and brought to safety on the tree branch.

While this happened close to 24 years ago, I found myself bawling my eyes out as this long-forgotten memory resurfaced and I reminded me of just how fragile life is, and what a miracle it is that I am still alive, and still have the chance and opportunity to spend my days pursuing (or trying to pursue) a God-glorifying life. This reminder is significant, as sometimes life can be so overwhelming that we can take the gift of living for granted. At 35 years old, it is also not lost on me that I am 3 years older than my mom was when she passed away. I recognise that all the dreams that she had for herself, all the living that she thought was still left in her, was cut short so prematurely, and that I am so much more privileged to have the opportunity to pursue those dreams and to live life fully.

Being Faithful in Cultivating the Gifts of God in our lives

This month, I treated myself to a meaningful conversation (#lovelanguage) with my favorite International Christian Counsellor, Anna Pack. During our chat, I pondered the significance of nurturing the talents bestowed upon us by God and remaining steadfast as we transition through different phases, each offering new opportunities to utilize these talents. I contemplated how certain individuals possess the ability to juggle multiple tasks and achieve greater success and productivity in their lives compared to others.

The Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-29 illustrates the concept of the kingdom of God through a story of a man who goes on a journey and entrusts his servants with talents based on their abilities. He expects them to manage these talents responsibly. While two servants successfully double their talents through trading, one servant buries his talent and fails to make any profit from it. In this story we learn a few lessons about how the faithful stewardship of our gifts and talents results in increased capacity and productivity in our lives.

All of us are given a measure of talents, gifts and resources according to our abilities.
Each of us is given an opportunity to multiply our abilities, or to grow our capacity - and this is based on how faithful we are in stewarding and cultivating the gifts that God has given us.
When we employ our gifts, talents and resources productively, we are rewarded with a capacity for more becaused gifts grow through being put to action.
When we let our gifts, talents and resources to remain dormant within us, we lose even the little capacity that we may have given and risk living unprofitable lives.

"Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things." Matthew 25:23

As I look back, I see how much my life is a testament of the manifestation of this principle of faithful stewardship resulting in increasing capacity. In the areas of my life where I have been a faithful steward of what God has entrusted to me, I can see positive outcomes of personal growth and expansion. And in places where I have been timid and have held back, I also see the fruits of stagnation and delay. And therefore, while I celebrate the areas in which I feel like my goals have been accomplished, I am also challenged to think about what I can do differently to get different results in areas where I have been stagnant. I am grateful, that as long as we have breathe in our lives, God gives us an opportunity to redeem the areas where we may have been careless, fearful or just lazy - so that we can be productive and profitable and achieve the purpose that He has for our lives.

Here are the books I am currently reading: