I was very happy the first time I was told that when I grow up I will prophecy, meaning that I will be a prophet. What triumph I felt. I was just 15 at that time and I never knew the challenges that came with the gift. But I tell you, it felt like it was severe pain. I had to face strong spirits (enemies of the gift) who had derived their power from the evil one and witchcraft, who cursed my family with anguish. I had to brake off those locks of darkness with the power I possessed which God, the Alpha and the Omega, had bestowed to me.

When I was young I had never really loved going to church but my mother, Phumla, dragged me there along with my sister. I always asked my mother questions based on this.

“Mama, why do you always drag me to church even when I don’t want to? Because anyway I don’t really believe in God, so why don’t you let me stay home and watch my TV?”

Yho, she almost lashed at me for putting the TV before God. But at the end of it all my mother had answered my question so that there were no gaps left in my mind about God.

She told me that putting God first and praying protected us from evil. That there is too much evil out there, even though we cannot see it but evil can see us and hunts us one by one. She even said the reason so many people are dying out there is because they don’t know God. She even quoted that verse from the Bible where God said “Do not worship any another Gods but me because I am a very jealous God and praise my name for eternity and you will enjoy the fruits of life and will be protected from the evil one.”

My mother was a very spiritual woman. She told me stories about her of when she was young. They had Bible lessons, both theoretical and practical, where they would have to act out the pain that Jesus felt on the cross. They made their cross using wood also and tied a rope on my mother’s wrists and legs in the cross. For that, they chose the best learners who could act. My mother was the best; she really acted her role as Jesus and many people cried in school just because of her. She could shed tears in no time. She had won numerous awards for her efforts and great acting performances. She was ‘MRS JESUS OF THE YEAR’. Her primarily school was blessed with born again Christians, she told me with a smile on her face.

But also life was difficult at home. My mother had to take care of the family while she was in school. My sister told me that while the whole family stood before the fire, that my mother used to buy shoes for the small children while she walked barefoot to school. She walked long distances to town, she walked barefoot even in the cold, rainy and stormy weathers.

My granny at that time was also working very hard. She had been recovering from grieving because she was losing all her children, one died after another like sheep. No one knew the cause of such sorrow; she had lost ten children. My mother and the twins my granny had, who are now my brothers, where the survivors in the death curse. My mother continued praying in that anguish.

In my family there was something that kind of confused me though, but now I have the answers. My family praised God and they were very spiritual but at the same time they sacrificed to the ancestors. It’s said that ancestors and God are connected; that the ancestors are an easy connection to God, they hear and send our prayers quickly. That used to confuse me. While my mother was that God-gifted woman with derived powers from God, she then met my father while she was in grade 11 (standard 9). My father impregnated her. I don’t know how he broke the spirit but he did impregnate the child of God. I was born and I was the first child my mother had. I was the gift from God and was baptised and named ‘Lubabalo’ which meant the grace of God, as it’s also quoted perfectly in the Bible.

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