When you realize your purpose – at age 28

I truly had an awesome weekend and one I won’t forget in a long time. It was super busy but super blessed. Woke up really tired on Monday morning, but with such a grateful heart.

Friday eve the three of us chilled at home with Pizzas – yummy!!!

On Saturday morning we got up early, headed to Suikerbos Rand to drop Damien off for a cycle and Erin and I went to Sasolburg with my mum.

I decided to go and drop off maternity packs at the hospital where I was born – Sasolburg hospital. What a humbling experience. I walked into the hospital, uncertain of where to go. The surreal feeling that I was born almost 29 years ago in this exact hospital, I wonder what my mum felt like on that day – 17 March 1986. I wondered if it looked the same, were any of those staff member still working there?

I went to the maternity ward, and spoke to sister Barnes, who was kind and soft spoken. I explained to her what I was there for and she was thrilled. I walked back and forth to the car to fetch 15 packs and was stared at by people, as though I was carrying GOLD!!

I started handing out the packs, chatting to each new mum. Asking them whether they had a boy or girl, what the babies weight was (nobody seemed to know their baby’s weight), whether the baby had a name etc. Some mums were thrilled to receive the packs, one mum even hugged me. Some seemed very overwhelmed and in pain. The babies were beautiful, each one so delicate and small. Some had names, others not yet. Some mums spoke and understood English, others not. One premmie was hooked up to a machine. Most mums were breastfeeding.

I walked into one of the rooms, and saw a tiny baby under lights. The mum explained that the baby had jaundice. I asked the mum whether she’d had any visitors yet, but she said “no, only messages on my cellphone”. The mum was so overwhelmed and I just tried as best I could to encourage her to hang in there “it will get easier, I promise”, I said. She was thrilled with her pack, specially made for HER and HER baby! Then I realized that I need to keep on keeping on with my packs. To some mums they don’t mean much, but to some mums, they mean the WORLD! I may have been that lady’s only visitor in hospital, after she gave birth to her first, sick child. What an overwhelming experience for her.
I walked out of the hospital with such joy and a full heart, feeling like what I had done (no matter how small it was) made a DIFFERENCE. At the age of 28 I realize I love my ministry and I’m so grateful to God for putting The Grace Factory on my heart.

I don’t have any fancy pics to show, there’s a specific reason I didn’t take my phone with me, but the pictures are imprinted in my heart and will be for a very long time.