Painted Shadows - By Sennette Gaoses

Written By: Sennette Gaoses

Category: Creative Non-Fiction

Competition: Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026

In the realm of creative non-fiction, Sennette Gaoses presents "Painted Shadows," a deeply introspective narrative submitted to the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026 hosted by Hashtag Kalakar. This poignant piece reflects on the themes of faith, healing, and personal transformation. With a dedication to God and her cherished family, Gaoses invites readers into a journey of resilience and spiritual awakening. Her work stands as a testament to overcoming life's shadows through the light of divine intervention and self-discovery.

About the Work

"Painted Shadows" is a profound exploration of personal pain and redemption. The narrative's tone is both intimate and reflective, as Gaoses shares her spiritual and emotional journey. Through vivid imagery and candid storytelling, she addresses themes of loss, depression, and the power of faith. Her literary style is evocative, painting a heartfelt picture of her struggles and triumphs. The work serves as a beacon of hope, illustrating how grace can transform the darkest of shadows into a testament of strength and beauty.

Painted Shadows

Original Submission by Sennette Gaoses

This book is dedicated to God, my cornerstone, who healed me and restored this wonderful gift of writing that is meant to serve His Kingdom.

Next, I dedicate it to my loving grandmother who is my earthly rock.

Not forgetting the parents God chose to bring me into the world; my imperfectly perfect pillars.

And of course the rest of my family who impacted my life and shaped the person I became.

Then I dedicate it to the sleeping angels that went home to be with God,

Oupa, my first hero

Oumait, my smiling angel

Sandra, Sen-Sen’s sweetest friend

Papi, my silent hero

Emberly, my purest angel

And Percy, my teasing angel

And all the family I lost along the way…

Losing you all has marked me in some way, but I will ever cherish the memories stored in my heart.

Last, but certainly not the least, the person that is in the clutches of depression.

It is the darkest, most painful place to be in. But God can heal you, just like he has done for me.

The Claws of a Shadow

A shadow looms

As the light dims

It slowly creeps

Its target

Your mind

Like a predator

Prowling on the hunt

It circles

And creeps in

Slowly,

Steadily,

And pounces!

Before you know it,

You’re in its clutches

The suffocating pressure

Sucking your very breath

You thrash

And kick

In utter desperation!

Fighting for your very breath

Even as you lose

Yourself

To the claws of

A predator!

Out to swallow you

In its deepest

And darkest

Shadows!

By: Tessie Pooh (12/06/24)

Foreword

A shadow is the one constant in our lives – even when we do not see it, it’s always there. To the happiest man on earth, it is but its true image – a shape resultant from the sandwiching of the body between the rays of light and a given surface. To the one that struggles however, it is a looming pressure that gets shaped and painted by the struggles we carry.

Let’s branch out the defining of a shadow for a little bit. So, we said that a shadow gets formed on a surface when light falls on a body – this scenario puts us between two things: light and darkness. We do not realise that as human beings on the planes of planet earth, this superficial reality is very much a reflection of our spiritual reality. We’re constantly sandwiched between light and dark in our spiritual reality – the side we put our focus on is the side we give dominion over our lives: God is light, the enemy is darkness.

Now, we are only human and it is very easy for the enemy to get to us if we are ignorant of the authority we have in Christ – the average human being is typically unaware of it. It is thus very easy for us to be embroiled in depression, alcoholism, addiction, fornication and all manner of sin. But deep down – we just want to belong and be happy; all we really seek is light. Even at the unconscious level, our spirit makes us yearn for God’s light because God’s love is meant to make us belong. It is not easy to focus on the light when shadows loom, when you feel like there is no way out. It is not easy to remember to cry to God when shades of pain paint our shadows.

This book is a personal account of the pain that painted my shadows – of how God brought me out of it and gained dominion over my life. It however did not happen overnight; my life was painted by differing shades of pain starting from childhood. It was not meant as an autobiography, but I soon realised that it was one, just one that focused on my pain, not the sum total of my life. It is a personal account that allows for drawing from my experiences – testimony – to show that we all can focus on the light in our lives in spite of the shadows that will always be a constant. We are not delivered from shadows, because as long as we live in the world, we will face struggles. The difference is that light always overcomes the shadows – if we let God.

Some of the revelations in this book will shock a lot of people, especially my family members. They had put me on such a high pedestal, that for the longest time I felt afraid of falling from that height. But I am only human, and am by no means perfect. My feet are made of clay, just as the next person’s. I am also free of shame because my creator has wiped all of my sins away.

I am thus sharing the most painful as well as the most shameful parts of my life with the hope that it will help those who have had similar experiences. I want you to know that you are seen – your pain is valid and your experiences form part of who you are. But you do not have to remain in that broken place, cast your burdens unto the Lord and choose to rest in him. He is your ever comfort and hiding place, and he is never far from you, even in the darkest corners that the world does not see about you. God is the light that chases out darkness – it has no place when you find the light. That light chases the heaviness that presses down on you so strongly, until all that you feel is freedom, is light!

Chapter 1 – Shadows of Family Foundations and Early Childhood Influences

We all come from people – these people are our first influencers, as a consequence, they form the foundations on which we build our lives. These foundations more or less determine who and what we become. If they are unstable, our entire lives are unstable – the reverse is also true, but not the objective of our subject at hand. Unstable foundations result in pain because of issues such as abandonment, abuse be it verbal or physical, neglect and so on. At the core the pain we feel is because we are starved for love – our souls want to be loved by our caregivers. These early attachments are especially crucial because they shape our worldview – the lens through which we see the world.

Now I am blessed enough to have been raised by a God-fearing, loving and kind grandmother. I grew up tuning into Sunday school on the local radio station in my vernacular if I did not go to actual Sunday school, reciting scripture, learning hymns by heart and singing “koorkies.” She became born again when I was six, so Pentecostal culture is pretty much what I grew up in, despite having been baptised Lutheran. This foundation is what brought me back to Christ in my thirties, but as much as she was instrumental in shaping my spiritual life, shadows painted my life even then.

I knew of loss as early as three years old, my earliest memory is around the age of three. It is of my grandfather dancing bare-chested in this red and black checked shorts. It is a very happy memory, but one that inspires bittersweet emotions because of the loss of my grandfather to death in January of 1991.

As young as I was, I can vividly recall the upset I felt at the time, I do not know if I can call it pain, as I was very young to perceive it as such. What I do remember is that I would run to his grave (graveyard), which despite being on the outskirts of the village was not too far from home. I would cry to him if people at home beat me or I didn’t get my way.

This loss marked me deeply, but I didn’t realise it at the time. I only realised it as I was penning this book – I always feel anxious if things are going too well. I expect some kind of devastation to follow. I have trained myself to not expect too much from people, even those closest to me because of this loss: the absence of my grandfather. I do not think I perceived his death as loss - because of my age at the time, it was absence to me. Absence bled into more absence in the form of the two people that brought me into the world.

I am a product of two people who were by no means ready for such responsibility – they are the best parents God gave me, but they were still but children and unmarried when they had me.

They grew apart and left me with my grandmother. I was weaned as early as eight months for my parents to attend a youth camp. For some time in my formative years, I even thought that my grandmother was my mother. Although my parents loved me, I felt their absence keenly when I realised that they were my parents and perceived in my tiny world at the time, what that meant.

My mother lived and worked in Windhoek (Namibia’s capital city) at that time (early 90s). I would feel acutely upset whenever she would return there after a weekend visit to us in Gibeon. I don’t remember that I cried, if I did, I soon stopped. Gradually it had become normal to not expect her presence.

My father had become teacher and then pastor in my formative years. He was – still is – a musician and would always come to our village to teach choral songs to the community. I remember the excitement a felt at any ounce of attention from him, how I would seek out those venues just to see him and the acute yearning it engendered. Those visits were so few and far between that I stopped expecting his presence too.

My loving grandmother was not always in Gibeon with us; she would sometimes be at the farm while we had school. I remember that I did cry, whenever my granny had to be away from us. I felt such heartbreak at the separation because she was my primary caregiver, hence I felt her absence even more strongly. She was the only person whose absence I never stopped crying over, even when I was first enrolled by my father and stepmother at a high school very far away in the Erongo Region – I originate from the Hardap Region in southern Namibia.

My grandmother was the one saving grace in my journey of absence of caregivers because her presence endured longer than her absence, but it still did not shield me from the emotional ramifications of said absence – the anxiety that it engendered grew progressively worse. Because, on some level, I must have felt her absence too. Hence absence of my caregivers had wired my emotion centre to expect doom if things are going too well – what is good will only prevail for a while before being absent. It thus added its own brand of shade to my shadows.

The next group that influences our early foundations is our peers. Our peers can be our biggest cheerleaders, or our biggest bullies – whatever it may be, it has lasting effects. When we fit in, we’re welcomed. But when we are the odd one out, we are shunned. I was always the odd one out, hence I was always called names or shunned altogether.

It wasn’t always like that. I had three best friends in primary school, one of them was my paternal cousin – she left our village after third grade. This must have subconsciously reinforced absence of loved ones. We were quite close and I felt very sad when she left to attend school in Windhoek. I was separated from the other two when I was enrolled at a different school from them in fifth grade – that made me sad too.

This new school was my first experience of culture shock – the environment was completely different from what I was accustomed to. I also struggled to fit in and to make friends – I think on some level I shunned friendships to protect myself from yet more separation. What had been effortless and light at my previous school was no longer the case. And so began my journey of isolation and loneliness.

Books became my friend and my form of escape. I would walk long distance to the community library to loan books to read. But even as I escaped, I felt a sense of longing to belong. Instead I faced bullying through name calling and harsh taunts about my appearance – when I spoke about it at home, my older cousin-sister (Ousi) came to my school to threaten my bullies. I felt so terrified when the bullying got worse thereafter and never brought it up at home again. It only stopped once another paternal cousin of mine joined the school and intervened on my behalf. She loved to fight and was brave where I was withdrawn and shy, so the bullies got intimidated, but we never became friends – my cousin and I.

Another form of bullying I faced was from some of my maternal cousins – not the ones I lived with at home, but some of the ones that lived next door. My personality was and still is of a dreamy disposition. I always live with my head in the clouds, not paying much attention to my surroundings, the job market brought it down a notch, but it was stronger in childhood. I would lose track of conversation because I would be lost in my own head, then when I came to I would be confused about any address that was directed at me. My cousins concluded that I was dim-witted. They called me “Kai !khapus” which translates to “the big dim-wit.”

Needless to say, my confidence was affected and I was isolated. Loneliness painted its own tinge to my shadows. This is also the deepest shade to my shadows. But it is not the only paint my peers added to my shadows, the next one was even graver, but I was just as willing and curious a participant. I don’t remember how old I was exactly, but I was quite young, perhaps seven or eight years old ...

In a small African village that does not have much to offer in the way of entertainment, adults occupy their time of day with pursuits that no child should ever witness: sexual activity. In houses built with corrugated iron that had holes aplenty in their walls, it allowed peeking of curious eyes that lost their veil of innocence as a consequence.

As curious children, we tried out what we witnessed – it formed part of our play; we even had our paper dolls play out mommy-daddy roles. It was as innocent as it can be for that age, but this opened a window for the diabolical world to gain entry to me in my adult life. It stayed with me in the form of intermittent masturbation for most of my teen and adult life – until Christ delivered me. It started off innocently enough in my teens, out of mere curiosity, but this is how the enemy entraps us. I would be fine for a long time, but then the urges would crop up. It always made me feel dirty and guilty and would pull me out of it, before I found myself back at it again. It became a vicious cycle that I felt helpless to escape, especially as my loneliness became stronger in my adult life.

Anxiety, loneliness and sexual perversion thus became the defining paints of my shadows in my formative and teen years before pain added more shades to take their place of pride in my shadows.

Chapter 2 – Relational Shadows

No one is an island to themselves, even the most isolated loner has some form of relations, familial at the very least to wrestle through. Human relations are not easy, because we are complex beings. God formed us as triune beings, because we are made in his image: we are flesh, soul and spirit. Each person is thus layered with the idiosyncrasies that set them apart, even identical twins are different at their core, and even they have to navigate the complexities of their relationship. It thus goes without saying that relational aspects would inadvertently add their own shades to our shadows, especially those that are to our detriment.

I also had to, and am continually navigating my way through relations I formed, some deep, some superficial in my life’s journey. The first chapter gave glimpse into how relations shaded my formative shadows – this chapter will offer a glimpse into the teen that transitioned into adulthood and how more shades of pain painted my shadows.

My high school years at a boarding school on a farm (Martin Luther High School - MLH) were arguably the happiest years of my life. It was wonderful to the point that I still regard that place as my home away from home. It didn't start that way though. I got my second culture shock and got introduced to initiation for the first time. It was traumatising, but I don't think it had a lasting effect.

What did initially paint my shadows was failing every test in every subject for the first couple of months. The transitioning was not easy because I was away from home and what was familiar. I snapped out of failing when one classmate commented that I was the stupidest in class as I failed every test – our Life Science teacher used to read results out after every test; I was always at the bottom of the list. This classmate wasn't being malicious, just speaking based on evidence.

I immediately recognised that that wasn't true about me and started focusing on my studies. Although I didn't really focus too seriously on studies in high school - that only happened at university - I was at least not regarded as the stupidest in class anymore. But it created the need to prove myself to others, to care about what others thought of me, and that was the next shade that painted my shadows.

High school is where most people form lasting bonds of friendship, I do not have any such bonds. I love my high school family, but just like my closest relatives, I never really expected lasting presence. Others would comment about how I did not have any friends, but I remember saying that I was a friend to everyone, it didn’t bother me at the time. Thinking back on it, I possibly continued shunning friendships because of early childhood trauma – at some unconscious level that shade deepened.

MLH was my happy place. I thrived in confidence and even discovered my talent for dance; I even won a beauty pageant in tenth grade – Ms Spring. I was a free spirit who danced to the beat of my own drum – no one could tell me what to do. I bloomed from a girl with very little confidence to one that became conscious of her beauty. I started experimenting with makeup, which was really just pencilling my lips and eyes at the time to attend evening studies and Saturday night school dances.

Reading of course remained my number one hobby – I always had my nose stuck to a book to the point that I would sneakily be reading during lessons. I didn’t even masturbate much, it was still just curiosity at that point because I was happy and carefree. Yet even then, I still picked up paints to shade my shadows. This just goes to show that even at the happiest place, you are not free from hurt.

My free spirit era was sadly very short-lived. It left me the moment I stepped on European soil. I had my next and possibly the biggest culture shock when I travelled to Germany after Gr 12 (May 2005 to February 2006). My former high school had – still has – a partner school in Lunen, Germany. I was chosen as School Assistant to the Geschwister Scholl Gesamtschule. This position was meant to foster relations between the two schools by offering a learner from our school in Namibia a chance at exposure to European culture, among other programs of the partnership.

Germany is a wonderful place, but it would have been a more rewarding experience had it happened at a time that my mind was more opened. As it happened, I was still much too closeted and naïve. I had not formed appreciation for culture, much less for linguistics which forms part of my greatest passions. No, this experience’ timing was premature to the point that it altered my personality vastly.

Not all was negative, I had the loveliest host families – yes plural. I lived with one for three months before being shifted to live with the second. This was because my first host mother had to leave the country. I love and appreciate both families for opening their homes up to me, but I formed stronger emotional bonds with my second host family – I still am in contact with them to this day.

I also gained fluency in my spoken German, although I have begun to forget it due to lack of practice. Additionally, I got to travel to Berlin, Heildelberg – with my first host mother to visit her sister’s family, Paris (France) and Zandvoort (Netherlands), the latter with my second host family on a day trip. I even got to attend an Angolan wedding in Germany and learned that Africans are just Africans, no matter where they find themselves as far as time is concerned (if you know, you know).

The fact that I was so naïve and unworldly added pain to my experiences and thus branded my shadows with its shades. I felt my self-esteem crush and fear seep into the fabric of my experiences. Germans are culturally outgoing and active; the country also had advanced technology like electric trains, some that ran underground (metro). I felt completely out of depth on most days.

Their most common form of transport in a dwelling is bicycles, but I never learned to ride one. When my first host family attempted to teach me, I felt so scared when I fell down, so I chose to use the bus instead. The first time on the bus alone, I climbed the wrong one. I felt so scared and confused, but I managed to get the next one to the correct destination - Namibia has buses, but the most common form of transport is sedan taxis.

Initially, my accent was a communication barrier in places like restaurants that I felt like even more of an alien. They spoke so fast and did everything at fast-pace, it made my head spin on some days. My confidence was so crumbled to the point that I could not even speak up to define an English word in one of the Gr 13 lessons I sat in – they were studying Shakespeare. Every negative encounter pushed me to draw more into myself until my self-esteem was at its lowest.

I found myself withdrawing into a shell of protection every day. Reading once again became my form of escape. My second host mother was confounded by my lack of interest in night activity – clubbing was something that never interested me, not even back home. But I was also not interested in other pursuits like dinning out – it was however more of a protective measure than a real lack of interest. I thus shunned friendships. My host mother was so loving, but didn’t realise the struggles I was facing because I always kept my sunny personality intact.

Thus Germany became the place that crumbled the esteem I had built during my high school years. Even exiting the country was traumatic. I had initially gotten a temporary three-month-visa, which then got extended during my stay in the country, but this detail had not been added to my passport. When I went to check-in, I was taken in by airport security for questioning. The German fluency I had developed enabled me to explain and they called the relevant parties to confirm. This was also where I learned that a language shared can eradicate our troubles. It was all of course God’s hand of protection over me.

The shades in my shadows were now loneliness, anxiety, and sexual perversion, the drive to prove myself, fear and low self-esteem. And with these shades began my university life upon my return to the country; I enrolled to study tourism management at Polytechnic, now NUST. Despite the negative experiences from Germany, it still felt good telling others I had travelled abroad. It also boosted my crumbled self-esteem at the amazement and interest it engendered in my peers when the topic came up.

For the first time, I took a chance and befriended two women from the same program – one was married and one was my age. The two of them formed a closer bond because they were not scared to hang out at night, but I always declined such invitations – I was introverted in nature. They also turned up, but I never consumed alcohol and never felt inclined to experiment with it even at university.

As the years progressed and their bond became stronger, I started to feel more alien in this friendship. I also started embellishing my German experiences because they made me feel relevant, until one of my two friends called me out on it in our last year of study on an educational tour. I stopped, but that also ended our friendship, because the two of them started shunning my company – I felt rejected, adding another shade to my shadows. Although rejection started in my formative years (bullying, being singled out), I think I consciously started to feel it only at this point, or it may have subconsciously marked me until then.

Chapter 3 – Shadows of Job Relations

As long as we form part of society, we have to enter the job market at some point and at the level that suits the level of our pedagogical instruction. Whether we enter formal or informal job markets, we are not immune from having to navigate relations with those with whom we work together. Unless we are self-employed, we spent the majority of our lives working to earn our keep. As the chief occupant of the majority of our time, the job market is thus a natural breeding ground for pain that springs up from soured relations with co-workers.

Our workplace is the one place that can result in our misery or happiness – depending on our encounters on any given day. I have heard people made mention of ignoring conflict as you are only there to collect a check, but this does not check out. Only the most spiritually stable and thus wise person easily diffuses or walks away from conflict – most of us react to hurt, especially at the age that most of us enter the job market: late teens to early twenties. Wisdom, they say, comes with age anyway.

I was thus far from immune to workplace hurt when I took up my first ever post in the job market as an intern at a travel agency in Windhoek. I felt so intimidated and terrified at the prospect, because I had very little confidence. I did well in my studies, but I felt rather ill-equipped to do the tasks assigned to me and had no one interested in mentoring me. I ended up not learning much and was converted into an errand girl for most of my tenure at that place. I didn’t feel like a gained any value from it, instead I felt limited, even dim-witted – I was made to feel like the big dim-wit of my childhood once again. Yet the imagination God gave me had me present a very convincing presentation at the end of it. It didn’t change the fact that my confidence remained at an all-time low.

My first official job was at a tour operator. It started off well enough, but things soon soured when I started making mistakes. My supervisor yelling at me further frayed my nerves and culminated into more mistakes. The feeling of dim-wittedness prevailed, never mind my crushed confidence. I ended up resigning from that job. The shade of anxiety was thus magnified by this experience.

It took me almost a year to secure my next job at another tour operator. I remember praying to work for someone who will be patient and understanding and God heard my prayer. Destiny connected me to the best boss and co-workers I ever had. I thrived at this workplace and steadily got more responsibility; my boss even ensured I got my driving license through paying for it. The intention was that I would do some errands around town with a car; it never materialised because alongside a different reason which will come later, the fear I picked up along my journey kept me prisoner.

The company was booming until my boss faced some challenges financially. But even then, through God’s supernatural blessing in the form of my kind boss, I managed to enrol and complete my Bachelor of English from NUST with very little income. To this day I am still astounded by the wonders of God; only he knows how I managed to have taxi money every day for work and classes, and that our Wi-Fi at work was never disconnected so I managed to do my assignments at the office. With my boss’ encouragement upon graduation, I applied to be a teacher and changed my career path after eight years at that company.

Even at such a stable working environment, the shades I picked up limited what I could accomplish: gained a driving license but did not use it. But the healthy working environment added a layer of confidence for my work ethic, an ability that gained permanence to the point that I never doubted my ability to work well ever again.

With this confidence, I entered the world of education. Now when I enrolled for the Bachelor of English, it was never with the intention to teach, I wanted to be a writer. Anyone who knows my truest nature knows how shy and withdrawn I am, yet I had to stand in front of impressionable and growing humans to teach. It felt daunting, but it did not discourage me – I had confidence in my linguistic knowledge of English, knew that I could teach it well. It was boosted by the fact that I essentially taught my classmates coursework as we revised for exams; I had been an unofficial tutor.

Navigating this new industry had its share of challenges; some days I cried at the learners’ misconduct due to my soft nature, but that went away with experience. I thrived at teaching English, even managed to produce three A symbols at national level during my first year of teaching. The teaching was thus not the problem.

The challenge with education is that you have to navigate teacher-to-learner relations on a daily basis. You are working with children that come from a host of differing backgrounds – some are fortunate, others not so much, some are well behaved, but others not so much. You as a teacher also come with your own background and sometimes, your brokenness can seep in during weak moments.

I would never intentionally hurt a child, but sometimes I would say something out of anger or frustration. “It’s because you never pay attention in class that you never pass any test!” “You are such an ill-mannered child; I will only work with children that are respectful!” I always apologise when such utterances come out of me. But this is just a demonstration of how painted shadows can taint you, even when interacting with children. A word once uttered cannot be taken back, now your brokenness has broken another.

Another challenging point in education is your interactions with your colleagues. A body of teaching staff contains a host of professionals from different fields with their share of qualifications and experience to impart to growing youth. You have linguists, scientists, mathematicians, historians and the like. This makes for a cocktail of layered quirks and thought processes, ones that you have to navigate on a case by case basis. It can be very tricky and can easily go awry. By God’s grace, that has not been my case, but I still faced challenges and my painted shades still managed to paint such interactions.

Albeit thriving in the classroom, I was very withdrawn during my first year of teaching. I didn’t interact much; I only did what was expected. Most teachers talk a lot, too much, so my behaviour was the exception. I made friends with an intern teacher, but was left to my solitude when she left. It managed to make for easy interaction because I was essentially keeping my walls up. It went pretty much the same way for the following years as I did not stay longer than I year until I reached the school I taught the longest at.

That was where I could not really keep my personality and my brokenness from seeping in. I found myself in yelling matches with some of my colleagues. What I discovered was that I was driven to reacting on emotion, especially when I perceived some form of injustice. I still have not figured out what shaded that particular shadow; it isn’t only in work contexts, even in my personal life, I abhor injustice. Whatever the case, shouting at grown people is nothing to write home about.

What is certain is the vast difference in my interactions at my first two jobs compared to my latter employment. The first two jobs painted my shadows. But as I progressed in the job market and in confidence at my work, those shadows tainted my interactions. What is clear is that job stresses and interactions make for a murky business.

Chapter 4 – Shadows of Perpetual Singleness

God’s mandate to Adam and Eve, the parents of humanity and therefore to us, was to be fruitful, multiply and replenish what they were charged with. Adam and Eve were the first companions on earth; companionship is in our very nature. This is why most humans feel the need for someone special to call their own, to have someone to build a life with. Even the shadows that haunt us are made lighter when we have people to help ease such shades. Only God heals our shades until only a true shadow remains; no human being should be given that responsibility. But companionship is what we were created for, that is why humans yearn for society of any kind. Forming romantic partnerships is one of the ways we fill that need for society.

The mandate to bear fruit and multiply naturally includes reproduction, but not everyone is called to reproduce. That’s why not everyone feels the desire for marriage and children; the ones called to do so feel a strong desire for it. I am among the latter, but looking at my life some would conclude that I belong to the former group. As the years perpetuated and depression kicked in, I too had resigned myself to thinking that way. It got to the point where I felt physical pain every time someone made mention of it.

Family gatherings especially became torture ground for me. Well-meaning relatives would bring up the subject, some would even ask intrusive questions: One aunty even asked me among company if I was still a virgin – it was my early thirties. She asked for forgiveness and I forgave her, but I was both mortified and pained to my soul by the encounter. It happened on the way to a cousin sister’s baby shower, honing my focus in on what I so yearned for. I went on to celebrate my cousin sister’s big moment because I was genuinely happy for her; I put aside my pain and even danced my heart out. I broke apart when I got home to Keetmanshoop in the privacy of my bedroom – the baby shower took place in Windhoek. But I jumped the gun. Let me start from the beginning to give you an understanding of how I got to that place.

The moment I started to read avidly, I was naturally drawn to romance. I loved reading fairy-tales as a little girl. My reading wasn’t limited to just romance – I read anything that was available to read, but the genre occupied the majority of my reading list. Reading romance, transitioned into watching romance. Growing up in Gibeon, we didn’t have TV at home. I would go to neighbours or relatives’ houses just to watch telenovelas. Other TV shows soon joined the list, like Generations and The Bold and the Beautiful, even as I transitioned to high school. I enjoyed the drama of the shows, but I most enjoyed the romantic plots. Needless to say that I became a hopeless romantic who dreamed of meeting her prince charming one day.

Before I went away to high school, my granny sternly instructed me to not pay boys any mind. I was to tell the boys that I was sent there for school, not boyfriends. I have always been an obedient child; this is not false pride, any elder of mine can attest to that fact. Needless to say that I followed this instruction to the letter. Even as I progressed through the grades, I kept to it and even told some insistent boys what my granny said. Even when I had the strongest crush on a boy at my school since tenth grade, I still didn’t pursue it – it was limited to scribbles in my books and romantic fancies in my head. I probably may have disobeyed had he shown any interest in me though; I later learned that he did but was too shy to act.

This had a double edged consequence. I was saved from a lot of trouble, I’m sure – I may even have become a teenage mom. It however also deprived me of natural experiences of adolescence to the point I got skittish around boys. I still hadn’t picked up any shadows in this at that point in time. I had my whole life ahead of me after all.

In Germany, I never got proposed to. I had a few crushes, but I was shy, reticent and not outgoing. You, my dear reader, also already know of my shadows at that point in time. I thus came back to Namibia without any romantic encounters.

I formed the strongest crush on a boy that lived down my mother’s street; I was in my first year of university. It was mutual at first, but I was skittish and initially turned him down. When my feelings grew stronger, I wrote him a letter expressing my feelings. He told me he moved on and I accepted it. I however still held a torch for him. He knew this and it gave him power over me, albeit dimmed down at some point by trauma, for the longest time. Any slight attention from him would turn me into a puddle of goo, then cause me pain at the rejection that followed.

I most likely would have moved on from him soon after, but something happened that gravely altered the trajectory of my romantic relationships. Due to my love of telenovelas, I soon fell in love with When you are Mine, a Mexican telenovela upon my return to Namibia. Two of its cast, one of them having portrayed the heroine of the show, soon found their way on Namibian soil. Not even my withdrawn nature would have kept me away from going to that show on that fateful night, except foresight.

I went with one of my brothers, a male cousin, their friend and a girl from my location. We did not have taxi money, but it was held at a stadium in Katutura, and going with boys gave us a layer of security. Except that we got separated from the boys soon after. We had to walk home in the dark, just the two of us. It was late and dark, and the streets were silent, but we made it safely to our location. It was when we were close to home that trouble loomed.

As we were trudging through the informal settlement before we got to the main street, we encountered a group of boys, may have been men. I don’t really remember, it was dark and poorly lit. I remember them blocking our way, then splitting to circle us. The girl sprinted ahead, she later told me that two chased her, but turned back when she made it to the main street. I froze in trepidation for a second, but a second too long. Just as I was about to sprint too, about four of them came onto me. I remember them strangling me in an attempt to keep me from screaming, pulling at my arms, searching my pockets for my belongings (they took my phone), pulling at my legs and trying to open my jeans, which to God’s grace were tight. The sensation of hands grabbing at me, stayed vivid for a long time.

The girl that was with me was God’s hand of protection on me that night. She did not desert me, she came back for me. She started screaming and throwing stones at the houses near the scene to get people to come out. Because of the ruckus she was causing, the boys, or men ran off. I remember how incomprehensible my speech was and how hard I panted when I got home. I went to the clinic to get treated for strangulation the next day, but did not get treatment for the trauma. I could not afford therapy at the time, and when I did, I never was able to form enough trust with the therapists that I did approach to talk about it.

This became a very dark shade to my shadows through the years. It coloured every attempt at romance to the point that nothing could ever take off. I would always self-sabotage such encounters because my trust in the male gender became tainted. Yet at every New Year’s Eve as I prayed for the new year, I always found myself praying for love. Deep down I yearned for someone who would see the scars I hid behind my nonchalance, put in the effort and pursue me. I wanted God to send me someone that would see that, but my prayers seemingly never got answered. The cycle of possible romantic entanglements that I sabotaged continued on.

I didn’t realise that bleeding scars would never lead to or even start a healthy relationship and began to lose hope in ever finding love. My peers were getting married and popping out babies left, right and centre. Yet I remained perpetually single. I began to believe that I was not desirable, that I must lack something. Why else was God not answering my prayers? At one point I told myself that I would focus on what I could control, my studies which I always thrived at (I hold four qualifications at present) and my career. Love was not in my control, I could not force anyone to like me. I knew at some level of my subconscious that I was party to my lack of romance, but when you’re broken, you’re far from being logical.

The enemy always uses our pain to gain footholds into our minds. Whoever controls the mind, controls your life. This is why being born again only takes root when your mind is transformed. Needless to say that this state of affairs was not only the reason for my deepest pain, but also my darkest shame. Over the years, masturbation stopped being a thing out of curiosity – gradually it turned demonic. I didn’t even realise that I had invited demons of lust and sexual perversion until I became born again.

Being a loner made it worse, because most of my private time was spent in my own company. My innocent pursuits of romantic literature soon turned into reading very sexually descriptive content. Having never had sex, I also became curious about it and looked up porn. But pornographic content made me feel sick. I thus stuck to reading such content, which was as much as my mental faculties could take.

I didn’t perpetually seek out such content though, it happened infrequently. I would be fine for a while, before frustrations about lack of romance kicked in. A mental burden of guilt and shame would always pull me out of it for a while – I now realise it was the Holy Spirit’s doing, then it would start again. I would excuse it with the thought that it was the only way I could satisfy my sexual urges – that became my biggest defence against my conscience which I now know was God trying to get through to me. I was slowly getting addicted and my mental health was getting worse as time progressed.

There was a period where I didn’t escape through such perversion, I escaped through writing romantic fanfiction for an Indian series that I loved. I wrote over a hundred stories, most of which were one shots. My readers loved my stories and always pestered me for more, if only they knew that everything I wrote was a product of my imagination. What I yearned for in real life found life in writing – I guess that made it convincing enough for my readers to be moved.

I also joined a community of other viewers of the show – some were writers of fanfics of the same show; others read our stories. We discussed storylines long after the show had ended and continued writing and reading stories about it. This connection soon went outside the forum, we connected on various social media sites. We became a community of virtual friends who supported each other through difficulties and celebrated each other’s achievements. The positive of it is that I still have connection with some of the friends I met on India Forums, but as our lives got busier, we can no longer pick each other up on hard days like before.

Once I switched careers to teaching, I no longer had enough time to be creative, so this healthy escape was lost to me. My growing depression also blocked my creative juices to the point that writing was becoming a farfetched dream.

Chapter 5 – Shadows of Grief

We are mortal beings who live in a fallen world. Our time on earth is not certain and neither do we determine how we will exit from it. Only God knows the when and the how of it. It does not change the fact that we become attached to those we form bonds with, be they friends or family. No one wants to say goodbye to loved ones. It is the hardest goodbye we ever have to make – even as Christians who know that we will meet again in the afterlife, it is not easy.

I knew about resurrection, but at the time I suffered the losses that I am about to narrate, it was superficial knowledge to me. Otherwise, my mental health would have been saved some of its heaviest burdens and the resultant painting of my shadows.

I had experienced the loss from death as early as three years and over the years I lost family members, but I only knew of its devastation when I lost one of my sisters in a car accident in 2010. I was crushed and it took me quite some time to heal from that loss. She was my half-sister, we shared the same dad, but that did not matter. I loved my sister. We grew up in the same village, but her maternal family was very strict and limited our interaction. It didn’t matter to me, I loved her simply because I knew she was my sister.

We bonded when we spent one holiday together in Swakopmund when I was in 11th grade. We would hold hands as we went on walks to the local grocer, we would sit and chat against the church’s wall (our dad is a pastor); we would cuddle as we slept on the same bed, or even go out to house parties with our other sister (adopted) and aunt who is my age. This was the only point in my teenage life that I behaved like one (going out at night).

Needless to say that the bond had become deeply rooted. We didn’t interact much after that, she was younger than me, all my siblings are. The night of her accident we, her sisters, somehow ended up briefly talking about her. I felt this strong urge to call her, but I did not have airtime. That lack of contact was the source of my biggest regret and pain when I lost my sister. It taught me to give people their flowers while they live.

By now you must have picked up that I mostly shunned friendships. That was until I met an angel personified as a human in January of 2012; she was the sister-in-law of my best boss ever and had come to work at our company. She saw me for who I was and loved me so authentically that my defences crushed, and I let her in. She loved to bake and would come to work with muffins every other day; she also loved her carrots and would always have one with her. She loved to crack jokes just so she could break out in loud laughter and she loved to sing. Her biggest love though, was her little daughter.

She would invite me out to the movies and some corporate events – I remember one where we danced our shoes off. I found it so foreign when she would text me to check in, because I was not used to that. She was also engaged and planning her wedding; we would peruse countless sites on the internet to get wedding ideas. She even asked me to be her bridesmaid. We formed a very strong bond in a very short time, but that time was over as soon as it started.

The day I got my driving license at the start of July, she called to congratulate me. I remember feeling this strong urge to tell her that I loved her, I did not do it. The next day she died. I was devastated. She is the reason I tell my loved ones that I love them after every phone call. This is also another reason I could not bring myself to drive a car; she promised we would go for a spin together after I got my license, we never did.

I was blessed to know three fathers in my life, four if you count my grandfather, except that he left me too early. One of them was my stepfather. My stepfather was not a man of many words. He was very taciturn and mostly kept to himself. The only thing that brought out his passion was soccer; he became so animated at any mention of soccer, especially his favourite local team: Orlando Pirates. He made me hate soccer because he would switch channels whenever it came on no matter what you were busy watching.

He was a man that took up his responsibilities as father and husband. He worked hard to ensure that we were provided for; we knew Papi coming back from a trip meant we would have plenty of goodies. He worked at the government garage and would transport government wares in huge trucks around the country. Even when he was diagnosed with diabetes, he still continued to provide for us. I saw how he started deteriorating in my very eyes as they started cutting off his toe, then foot then his leg under the knee.

He loved his independence and insisted on driving with his prosthetic leg – it broke my heart to witness that. I am sure he hated having to depend on others. For such a masculine man, he must have felt emasculated by his illness. He was constantly in and out of hospital towards the end of his life. The last time he was admitted, I felt that he may not come home. I realised I was right when we lost him.

This loss made my mother the sole breadwinner in her home; it has not been easy for her to do, especially having to raise my little brother without his father. We struggled to keep afloat but God has been faithful. I’d like to think, I was elevated in my career and salary grade, precisely to help ease her burdens by God. Needless to say that this was another devastating loss that marked me.

In 2019 I lost my little niece, she was only a year and three months old. She did not have any health complications since birth, it was a heat stroke that claimed her life. She had given us such joy in her short life and we had fashioned so many dreams for her; she had such rich personality for her young age. I couldn’t make it to her baptism and thought to myself I would have plenty of opportunities for other special occasions in her life. If only hindsight was foresight, she died the Tuesday following her baptism.

The period of 2020 to 2021 was not easy for the entire world. The year 2021 was especially very hard on me. I lost quite a few maternal family members to Covid-19 and other illnesses. Every other day I would hear that such and such was in the hospital or has passed away. It got to a point that I became numb from all the pain, I just could not process so much loss in such quick succession. My anxiety grew to the point that I was expecting doom to befall my family every day.

The year was apparently determined to crush me completely – I was even diagnosed with hypertension in August. Being diagnosed with hypertension in my early thirties was a shocker. Despite it being part of family history on both sides, I had always taken good care of myself. I never smoked or consumed alcohol and I loved eating healthy – veggies are my favourite food and water is my favourite drink. I do love spice though, the hotter the better. I think my condition was triggered by the losses I suffered that year.

Then the year of disasters culminated in the loss of a beloved sister. Our sister’s death in 2010 bonded my paternal siblings and me to become even closer, especially the sisters that remained. We realised how quickly we could lose each other and just how fragile life was. We never thought though, that we would lose yet another sister in the exact same manner: car accident in December of 2021.

I had given my sister her roses while she lived, but I never expect to grieve for her, never mind so young. The niece I lost in 2019 was her only daughter, so we did not even have a child of hers to love on to ease that pain. My sister was someone very quiet when with family; I heard she was different among friends. But her quiet and steady presence communicated her love. She was quick to support her loved ones when needed – she even took care of our dad after an operation (was studying to be a nurse at her time of death). She was very neat and organised.

She always loved to tease me at every chance she got to the point she would struggle to catch her breath from laughter; she had such admirable episodic memory so no one in the family was immune from her teasing. She was my free hair braider – I did not need a salon most of the time when I lived in Windhoek. She loved photos and would always pester me for my phone to take photos; she was my personal photographer too – she loved posting us (her siblings) on her WhatsApp statuses. Every other 20th of the month (may pay day) I would get a text which read, “Ousi, I am hungry.”

How I have missed that text since. I had gotten so numbed by so much loss that year that processing this loss was hard. It took me a while just to feel the reality of it before I actually grieved. It also added to my depressive state.

As long as we live in this world, we will always encounter death, yet it feels new every time. I don’t think it is something we would ever get used to; not even knowing that it is just temporary separation to the believer. We grow so attached that the absence is crushing. The good news is that our Lord Jesus understands our pain; he became the perfect human that walked the earth just so he could understand our nature. Even he lost family (his earthly father, Joseph although his death is not recorded in the bible) and friends (Lazarus).

Chapter 6 – Shadows of Depression

In an ideal world, we would know no sorrow or trouble and would be the most joyful people in existence. Unfortunately the world isn’t ideal. We are sure to face trouble and sorrow as long as we exist on this mortal plane called earth, and in this dispensation before Christ’s 2nd coming. Most among those that grow up in complete homes with healthy parents – and I don’t mean physical health here – are given the tools to overcome mental challenges. They are able to bounce back from every challenge that life may throw at them, even if they grow up in poverty like I did. Although there are exceptions of people from broken homes who are blessed with mental strength, I thus do not mean to overgeneralise.

That is not everyone’s reality, it most certainly wasn’t mine. Don’t get me wrong, I grew up loved; I never felt neglected as a child. My grandmother, sister and cousins in the same home adored me. My parents, especially my mother would call every other day to check in. My dad would always call on my birthdays; he and my stepmother became my primary caregivers in high school. Familial love shielded me from a lot growing up, but the things that painted my shadows were still very much a factor to how my life turned out.

All the shadows that I accumulated in my life formed a dark cloud that gradually grew heavy and loomed over my mind as the years advanced. My mental state was like a rubber band that was stretched with every shade to my shadows as my life progressed. It had to snap at some point and I got swallowed up by the heavy cloud that pressed me down to the deepest and darkest places of my mind. It happened towards the latter half of 2023. That year has come to mark the hardest year in my life yet, but it had really started progressing for the worst since 2021.

I read a lot to escape having to mourn the loss of my sister, but when I couldn’t suppress it anymore, I went for counselling. Before that I was diagnosed with clinical depression by my doctor. Counselling gave me the tools to grieve that loss and make peace with it; not heal. One never really heals completely from such loss; it marks you permanently. You just learn to live with it in a way that the pain doesn’t cut as sharply anymore – and that is really okay.

That was the only aspect therapy eased for me. I couldn’t really connect deeply enough with my therapist that despite telling her about the almost rape, she just couldn’t help me with that. I did not bring up the remaining ingredients of the cocktail that was my mental health. I went through the motions until she was convinced that I was stable enough to end our sessions. And so I transitioned to 2023.

I was far from stable. I progressively lost interest in any of the things I loved doing, like reading. Reading became a mindless gobbling of what was on the pages without taking in any meaning. Work became a chore to the point that I began going through the motions just to get it done. I still taught well enough by God’s grace; I produced four A symbols for 11th grade at national level and none of my Gr 11 kids failed with the lowest being four E symbols.

But I didn’t find any joy in teaching. On some days my mental strife seeped into my classroom and I would find myself losing patience with my kids and yelling at them. Even that added to my mental struggles because of the guilt I would feel afterwards. I didn’t show it to my colleagues though; to them I was still my smiling, sunny self.

Meanwhile I was getting progressively swallowed up by that dark cloud that I only managed to barely keep at the edges while I worked. I could not escape it when I got home. I would break apart on some days on my bed, groaning as I folded into myself and called out to God. It got to a point that it affected my physical health. I felt scared when I could barely stand and felt tingles in my body after a bath a couple of times; I had to lie down on the bed before I had the strength to stand up again.

I got prescribed heavy doses of hypertension medication; my doctor then decided to send me to a specialist in Windhoek. He said that the walls of my heart had thickened due to the hypertension that was likely undiagnosed for a long time, aside from high cholesterol though, everything else was healthy. That exam let to the reduction of my hypertension medicine dosage, thanks be to God. This was during the winter break of 2023 (mid-June to mid-July).

When I got back to work, my duties increased. Because I was the only English teacher at the secondary phase of my school, I ended up teaching the whole phase alone. The temporary post we advertised did not get filled that year despite the interviews that were held. Increased work was a challenge to my mental state. I had to grin and bear a lot and I was so easily triggered. If I got triggered while at work, I had to force myself to keep it together until I got home; I would pray to God to help me to not break down in class. I found myself in the bathroom a few times to force my tears back.

I would especially get triggered by social media content, particularly the things that were related to romantic relationships or finances. By now the reason for relationship triggers is obvious. As for the finances, I had gotten myself into quite a bit of debt when my mother’s water was closed by the City of Windhoek (municipality) and to pay for my Master’s in Linguistics at a South African institution; I ended up not studying because they changed the criteria from distance to full time, which I could not do. I also hold a few insurance policies – this reduced my pay check quite substantially. I also took yet another loan to help one of my sisters avoid jail time as she was being threatened.

The pay check reduced, but my financial responsibilities to my family and to myself did not. I also always struggled saying no to people when they asked for financial help, most times to my own detriment. I ended up having to borrow in the middle of the month so I could meet my basic needs (electricity, food which always ran out).

Can you be in any doubt about the state of my mind at that point? I felt like a deep dark pit was swallowing me up from all sides and I could not crawl my way out of it. The episodes of mental breakdown became more frequent. Every time I folded into myself and groaned on my bed, I would feel a sharp pain shoot up from my finger tips and my toes; it would shoot up my arms and legs before I would feel it press down sharply on my chest and thighs before it would pass down from my upper and lower body until it centred in my stomach; it was simultaneously numbing and sharp – only those who experienced it would know what I am describing. I would groan out God’s name as I would fold into myself to try and ease the pain to no avail. I would remain in that position until it would ease up after a while.

I was also continuously sleep deprived to the point that only ASMR would get me to fall asleep. I perused so many ASMR channels on YouTube because what would work one day would not work the next day. Anxiety over another mental episode, or just mulling over my mental troubles burdened my sleep so much, some nights I slept fitfully.

The thought of December holiday was very daunting for me. I dreaded having to go home to my family just to pretend that I was fine. Yet it was actually for my good to be amongst family. I was too preoccupied with the buzz of activity to have time for my mental struggles. I was able to feel normalcy because of the presence of my loved ones. I was not out of the woods just yet though.

Chapter 7 – When God Repaints your Shadows

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11: 28-30.

The person writing this book in June of 2024 is vastly different from the person that was crushed by a dark cloud in 2023. I feel so light and my joy is in the Lord who pulled me out of the darkest place of my life. As Christians we truly do God a disservice when we choose to take on our own burdens and suffer unnecessarily. All he requires from us is to make the choice to turn to him; once we allow him to transform our lives, he becomes our true hiding place.

Of course, I didn’t become a new creation overnight; there was a gradual shift between December 2023 and April 2024. God used one of my painful points to pull me back to him. I saw light in the area of my finances; they are still not different from what they were last year, yet my perception makes all the difference. His word says in Proverbs 13: 12 that “hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” The hope in God for a change in my finances, pulled me out of the dark pit that was slowly swallowing me whole.

That hope also brought me out of the deepest pain of my life. It was resultant from lack of that special someone in my life. Yet even in that, God restored my hope. I have started praying to him again to connect me with the person he has created just for me. I know some people say that God does not do that, but his word says in Proverbs that he who finds a wife finds a good thing. I am thus waiting to be found and I have faith that I will be found by who God has set aside for me – he even showed me a vision of what my daughter would look like – and it will be one of my biggest testimonies to showcase his glory.

My hope in God made all the difference in all areas of my life. I have been getting to know God for the loving, kind and merciful creator that he is. When I turned back to him and gave my problems up to him, I was able to rest in the Lord. He has also been delivering me from unclean spirits in my own bathroom – with the help and teachings of his Prophet Lovy Elias all the way from America, whom I have come to regard as one of my spiritual mentors. I have learned that things related to the spiritual are not hampered by distance.

God has also been introducing me to and breaking me out of the things that contributed to the painful experiences of my life – some were not my fault at all. There are patterns in our families that the enemy uses to cause distance between God and our bloodline: Evil foundations. Because I am an illegitimate child, my foundation did not start right; this naturally contributed to some of the strife I faced. This is because spiritually, the sins of our families are passed down to us. The things we regard as normal, like addiction to alcohol and lack – both are patterns in my family, are far from normal. This is because life is in the blood; we carry our ancestral sins as much as we carry their DNA.

Of course, not everything is the fault of our ancestors; our own choices contribute to the trajectory of our lives. I have always loved the quote by JK Rowling, “It is not our abilities, but choices that make us who we are.” If I had chosen to not go to Germany, perhaps my confidence and carefree nature would have remained intact, or perhaps something else would have stripped them from me. If I had chosen to not go out that night, I would not have been introduced to the trauma of potential sexual assault – God did save me from the worst that night, but it had been a traumatic experience all the same. Had I been wise enough to know that my affinity was to linguistics and literature, I may not have had to initially experience such painful working environments.

But then I would also not have met the people that I met in some of those places – to regret my choices would mean regretting their contribution to my life starting with my German host families, my best boss and colleagues there, including the wonderful and only best friend I ever had, and every other positive encounters that I had throughout my life because of those choices.

A proverb from my mother tongue loosely translates to “If only I had is not a root that can be dug up again.” What is in the past cannot be changed; this is why we have to make calculated choices. This of course comes with experience for those who wise up and learn from their mistakes. Even so, I do not regret my life choices. I regret the pain from the experiences from some of those choices, but those painful experiences do not comprise the sum total of my life; those same experiences caused me to grow and to transform.

We have to make choices every day of our lives. To wake up and meet your familial and work responsibilities is a choice, even what to eat for breakfast is a choice. What media we consume and who we give our affections to, everything in life is based on choice. This is because God gave us freewill to the point that even following him is a choice.

What I do know is that turning back to God has been the best choice I ever made. I feel so much ease having chosen to hand my burdens over for him to carry. Choosing to learn and grow in his word has given me such intimacy with my creator that I yearn for it even more each day. And falling asleep without anxiety crowding my mind is such a wonderful privilege that only comes from God, not ASMR.

The girl that initially penned this book back in mid-2024 is completely different from the girl that is adding this concluding part for this semi-biography; I regard it as semi because I have not shared my whole story, just the painful experiences that caused me depression. It is amazing how much I do not even recall the dark place I was in back then. God has continually kept me in the light and revealed more of who I am to myself – our lives are hidden in Christ (Colossians 3:3). Missing out on Christ and the salvation He avails through grace really robs us of the wealth we have in Him. There is so much about your true self that is only revealed to you when you have God in your life.

God has also led me to a wonderful spiritual family at Christ the Way Ministries, here in Karasburg. This is an apostolic and prophetic church that has deep revelatory teachings on the word of God. I was baptised in November 2024 when the Holy Spirit impressed upon me that it was time. God has been raising me in this house as His servant – I am being mentored as a disciple by the father of the house, Apostle Ambrosius !Nakhom.

Outside of the church, God in His faithfulness also connected me with his anointed servants on this walk with Him. My relative, who is also a powerfully anointed apostle of God: Agnes Frederick who prophesied into my calling and my marital destiny. He also connected me to her spiritual mentor: Bishop Riedewaan Peters from South Africa who back in 2025 was very instrumental in interpreting the dreams God was giving me to understand my calling.

I know that there are yet more destiny helpers out there for me. I also know that I too am a destiny helper. Having read my story, you are witness to the transformation that God has done in my life. I have His truth, I have His life in abundance and I have His way: Jesus Christ, my Lord and Saviour. And because I have Him, I have everything that I could ever need; through Him I also have the desires of my heart. My life will bear testimony to His goodness and faithfulness.

So yes, my shadows are no longer painted by pain, darkness or depression. Instead, they are painted by grace and God’s glory. I still have shadows, everybody does – but these shadows are painted by growth, by transformation and by God’s beauty. Because this is what happens when grace rewrites your story. Every chapter leads to glory and honour when the King of Glory lives inside of you.

About the Competition

The Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026, organized by Hashtag Kalakar, is an esteemed platform celebrating diverse voices in literature. It invites participants worldwide to showcase their original works across various genres. This competition fosters creativity and offers a unique opportunity for writers to share their stories with a global audience. Through this event, Hashtag Kalakar continues to champion the art of storytelling, enriching the literary landscape with fresh and inspiring perspectives.

We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Sennette Gaoses for sharing "Painted Shadows" with us in the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026. Her work resonates deeply, offering a powerful message of hope and transformation. We appreciate her courage and dedication in illuminating the path from pain to grace, and we look forward to witnessing the continued impact of her inspirational storytelling.

About Hashtag Kalakar

Hashtag Kalakar is a creative platform dedicated to providing artists, writers, singers and other creative talents with opportunities to showcase their work and reach wider audiences through competitions, features and creative initiatives.