Looking back, I realize that finding your footing isn’t a single, triumphant moment. When I stood on Maynard Hill, praying for an easy escape, I didn’t yet understand that deliverance is a slow, often messy journey. I thought that once I found God’s mercy, the road ahead would be smooth. Instead, that bright day was only the beginning of a long series of stumbles—the first of many times I would wander, trip, and find my way back to grace before I finally understood what it meant to be truly held.

Whenever I look back on my youth, my mind invariably drifts to that day on Maynard Hill. I can still picture myself walking down that road, crossing the two bridges, and following the narrow path through the centre of the community toward the busy heart of town. The sun was high, and the sky was so clear and blue that it felt as though God were watching my every step.

In that bright light, I stopped, looked up, and prayed an honest prayer:

“O God, if You know that I am going to backslide again, please, just take me to heaven right now.”

I recited the staple prayers my mother taught us—Psalm 23 and the ‘Our Father’—and felt invincible. I must admit that my mother prayed with us and taught us to recite the Psalms alongside nursery rhymes. Good for the soul and the mind.

I was about twenty-two then, young, unsure of myself, and driven by raw emotion, though I was still growing. I truly loved God, yet I was terrified of my own weaknesses. Even then, I knew how easily I could be led astray by my desires, exhaustion, and daily struggles. Looking back, I cringe at how bold that prayer was, but I can still see its profound honesty. It was born of love and sheer desperation. I was just beginning to realize how desperately I needed God’s mercy to keep me going.

In one of those dark seasons, there was a quiet moment when, after pouring out my heart in the prayer meetings led by elder believers, I felt a peaceful assurance wash over me. It was neither dramatic nor loud, yet I sensed I was heard. For the first time in a long while, hope quietly took root in me. God was not letting me go. I began to see that His mercy met me exactly where I was, every time I asked.

That terrifying fear of my own weaknesses at twenty-two had already been running on empty for years. It didn’t start in adulthood; its roots were planted in primary school. As the oldest child, I shouldered a heavier burden of responsibility than I could have described, helping to raise my four younger siblings. I often felt so overwhelmed and distracted that focusing on my studies felt impossible. To this day, I am not entirely sure how I managed to graduate from the SDA Academy.

Still, what stood out most from that graduation day at the Adventist church was not the fanfare or the diploma in my hand. It was the voice of a girl cutting through the crowded hall, singing a line that took my breath away and etched itself into my memory:

“Do you know where you’re going? Do you like the things that life is showing you?”

Sitting there in my neatly pressed green-and-white uniform, surrounded by families—though I can only vaguely remember whether my mom and dad were able to be there—the question felt entirely personal. It was as if a spotlight were shining directly on my hidden panic.

That song stayed with me long after graduation. Over the years, it stopped feeling like a simple commencement hymn and became a question God kept asking me.

“Do you know where you’re going?” I heard it echoing after I made mistakes, during the seasons when I felt entirely lost, and whenever I was around people who chipped away at my confidence. The second question was even harder: “Do you like the things that life is showing you?” Back then, I was usually too afraid to answer honestly.

I used to carry a quiet loneliness too deep for explanation. One afternoon, aching to be rid of the burden, I turned to my notebook and let my raw emotions flood the pages. I stared down at the first words I wrote: “Why me?”

A classmate noticed. Later on, I found an anonymous note left for me. The message was simple: God loved me, and I was special to Him. While the exact words have faded from my memory, the feeling never did. I remember the sudden, quiet warmth that settled over me and what it truly meant to begin to be seen.

Eventually, I discovered the note had been left by a classmate who attended the same Pentecostal church where I had first converted. We were among the many non-Adventists at the Adventist Academy; perhaps she understood the stress I had no name for better than I realized.

“Come on,” she’d say, as soon as the last bell for the school day had rung. “Let’s walk up the hill.”

Up on the hill was the white lady with one hand; she sold the best homemade ice cream. It wasn’t just a snack; it was a lifeline. Once or twice a week, I wasn’t the overwhelmed oldest sibling or the girl panicking about my faith. I was just a teenager enjoying ice cream with a friend. Those walks became my quiet sanctuary.

Healing, however, is never immediate. Changing my address didn’t silence the old battles. In the years after leaving Maynard Hill, I still wrestled with the parts of me that had wandered. There were nights in unfamiliar rooms when I lay awake, murmuring, “How did I end up here again?”

Some evenings I tried to steady myself. “Just breathe… keep going.”

Other times, all I could offer was, “Lord, don’t let me drift too far.”

There were seasons when I felt like a stranger in my own life. I remember telling a friend, “I really thought moving would fix me.”

She shook her head gently. “You don’t have to be perfect for people to care about you,” she said.

I didn’t fully believe her then, but her words stayed with me long after the conversation ended.

My prayer has changed over the decades. I no longer look up at the sky, asking to be lifted out of my troubles. Now, standing on new soil, I ask Him to keep me. “Lord, preserve me,” I whisper. Step by step, prayer by prayer, I am still learning how not to fall.

From where I stand now, I understand that preservation doesn’t mean avoiding storms, nor does it require remaining in the place where everything broke. It means that even when I stumble, whether in my homeland or a new country, the ground beneath me is still His grace.

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Thank you for reading! 💛

In our next chapter, "The Spell," I will share one of the most vulnerable parts of my story—a season when the wrong company and a deep, isolating silence opened the door to violations I never saw coming. It was a time when I turned to my diary as a silent therapist, pouring out my heart on pages that could listen but offered no solutions. I invite you to join me next week as we explore how the illusion of safety shatters and how God’s grace reaches into spaces we feel are completely broken.


In the meantime, if you haven't read Chapter One, I made it easy! Here's the link👇🏽

The Conversion- 1983