My journey with Faith: From Trials to Healing Through Cooking

I started attending Sunday school at the age of five. I grew up with a loving mother who supported me endlessly, even though life was never easy. I still remember when we moved out of our family home. My mom had just given birth to my baby brother in 1986 - through a C- section and we were renting a back room at our church, a Roman Catholic cathedral.

That was also the time my father's abuse grew unbearable. He was physically and emotionally violent toward my mom. I remember one night in vivid detail: he kicked us out. My mom was still bleeding from her operation, carrying my week-old brother in her arms. We stood outside, and I - just a little girl - prayed with all I had. I recited the Our Father, begging God to save us. And He did.

Seven years later, my mom left him, and we moved again, this time to a different part of the city. In 1990, political violence tore South Africa apart. One night, bullets flew through the neighbourhood we lived in. I still remember lying low in fear - but we were spared.

Eventually, we moved in with my grandmother, but the unrest followed us. Her home was also attacked. She was forced to join a political group, and once again. we survived through grace.

In 1994, my pafents got back together , but the home was nevert the same . Years later after my mom passed away, I got married not knowing that I was truly doing. That marriage became one of the hardest periods of my life. I was a stay - at home mom' dependent and struggling - but I had Faith.

That's when cooking became my healer.

Even when I couldn't afford much, I cooked like I was feeding a kingdom. I didn't realize at the time, but food was the way I expressed love, gratitude, and strength - even when I was broken inside. I through that as long as I cooked. I was paying back all the support I received, even if I wasn't receiving love in return.

I didn't feel any love for some time, but I kept the light going when it comes to my Faith, but back in my mind I felt like each and every trauma I went through as a child I was re-leaving emotionally I was trying to fill the empty space a void that I believed that my Father was supposed to do that for us, I was supposed to see the love from my parents so I could understand the meaning, and feel it when one express it.

But one day through Faith and cooking I thought of everything that I was saved from even to be in a marriage I didn't understand back than God was paving a safe place for my siblings who needed a Mother and Father figure and I had to be that Mother and my Husband had to play that role of a father I never had, and all the colours of vegetables, spices combine together ,gave me hope so my Faith and cooking remain the partnership I never had. I pray for my food, pray for the person who provides, pray for every person who is a part of the process of the food I buy.

And now, I understand that my Faith is not about what I can do to prove myself- it's about God's presence in my life, through every storm and every dish. He never promised a life without trials. But He did promise to never leave or forsake us.

Today, I continue to heal with every steaming pot, and every dish made with soul. My stove remains lit, just like my Faith.