SCHOOL AND BEYOND

Today was bible study, but I couldn't join because I didn't have internet connection. This means the earliest I can watch it is on Saturday, when I have internet connection.  Yesterday's entry did not do any justice, so I thought I should write today's blog about yesterday's theme. I wrote yesterday's blog entry literally 16 minutes before midnight. I am really keeping up and making sure that I keep showing up for myself. My latest IG DM. Few days ago, someone like my posts and sent me a follow. I noticed something that made me think that we may have gone to the same high school. I asked him who he was and he told me his name. Let's call him D. D has a private account. I asked him to send a picture maybe it'll spark a memory. He said I should check it out in  his highlights, so I followed him back. And I recognized him. He was a grade behind me in high school. He started with small chit chat and it was kind of boring to be honest. So I asked him where he

I almost forgot to blog today. I am busy helping my mom out with some documents. Please forgive any spelling errors or typos, I don't think I'll have time to proofread this blog entry. Hope you enjoyed your day. Today was election day. I went to the voting station with my mother, sister, and niece. Unfortunately my sister and I were not on the list, so we didn't vote. I am a little disappointed because this was the very first time I was going to vote in my life. But, let the will of God prevail. We will watch out for results on the news in the next coming days. I am still quite busy right now, so I'd like to close it here. Remember to engage, follow, share, and watch out for my next post... I love you but Jesus loves you more.

Today is my weekly chance to share a devotional on the Gospel of Grace of Ministry WhatsApp group chat. I felt like the holy spirit was convicting me more that it was getting through to them. I have not been reading my Bible ad frequently as I should. Remember yesterday I was talking about God's will for my life, I am decoding to take a few steps back, listen to God and follow his guidance  Yesterday I was very excited about taking myself seriously and start posting more often on social media. But I should be concerned about is whether my plans in alignment with God's will for my life. Are they going bring me closer to God, or take me far from him ?  Today I was reading from Romans chapter 5:1-11. There are a few main points to grab. 1. Faith is our access card to God's grace. 2. God's eace surpasses all human understanding (also see Phillpians 4:7). 3. It's very scarce for someone to die for a righteous person, let alone a sinner. But Jesus died on the cross for ev

There are many people who still ask God, "What is your will for my life?". Today, I was doing the same thing. And there are a few things that came to mind,  that I noticed. One of them being that I don't take myself as seriously as I should. A big part of me is always scared of taking risks and making mistakes. And this causes me to miss out on so many opportunities. Some time ago I was watching a live on Instagram by Dr Victoria Faith where Grace Mondlana was invited to speak. She said some really valid points. She said "You are exactly where you need to be, and what you have is what you need to get started. Just start." The was a blog post where I mentioned this part. Today I was reflecting on the live in a different light. Grace Mondlana went live a few hours ago, to announce that she is moving to a new apartment. I felt so proud of her. There are so many things to love about her, one being that she is so relatable, she actually feels like an inspiring big si

Today is Sunday. The last day of the week. The day to rest and praise God. Today I am blogging on my phone, my laptop does not have internet connection, but I made sure that my phone does, so I can not repeat yesterday's incident. I have a bad cough, it's been going on for a few weeks now. I am not the type to get sick, but this cough has me on ckokehold, literally. I don't like being being sick, it is not nice. In my family, I'm the one who gets sick the least times in a year. Another thing is that, I am not really a fan of pills and syrups. My sister just recommended that I rub Vicks Vaporub on my throat. I just did, and now I am lying in bed. There is hope, I feel better than I did five minutes ago. So, my Sunday. Today I didn't go to church. I had many things to do, and thankfully I managed to finish everything. Even it was kinda challenging because I was babysitting, and I was in charge of Sunday dinner. It was amazing, the compliments were rolling, and my fami

The 365 days challenge is really being tested. I currently don't have internet connection right now, so this blog entry will automatically be uploaded when I have connection, and that is going to be at midnight. This means that the entry will have a different date than the one it was written on. I will not let that stop me from posting on my blog, or let me lose out on my own challenge.  I have been thinking about theme days. I know I said I'll figure out theme days when my blog is bigger , but let me have my moment and play pretend for a second, yeah ? So here are a few ideas I have. Tuesdays I will be sharing the devotional that I share on Gospel of Grace ministry group. Fridays will be for Thursday evening and Friday morning bible sessions with Rorisang catch up and reflection. Wednesdays can be for story of my life moments and maybe personal testimonies or I can ask for advice. There are still days without themes, but God will make things work. As the blog grows , I will ha

The hectic day I had gave me multiple reasons not to blog today, but the grace grace of God, and the 365 days challenge, I am here. Today was an unexpectedly hectic day, I felt like I was not in control of anything except my temper. I'm glad the day is over and I can finally rest. Today I woke up so early, I missed the morning prayer session at 6am, but I saved the live in my collections, I will definitely watch it as soon as I get a chance. The main point of today's blog is showing up, even if I don't have thousands of readers (yet), I will continue to show up everyday until my blog reaches over a million readers and even beyond that. Yes I am thinking that ahead. I choose to decree and declare positivity about my blog.A small girl with a big God, that will forever be my everyday testimony. My God is bigger than any situation. I serve a miracle working God.  Yesterday at bible study, we were reading Matthew 4:18-22. This is the scripture where Jesus called his first discip

I am really drained right now. There are so many reasons why I could have missed today's blogging session, but I decided to show up, even when I didn't feel like it. I remembered my 365-day challenge. Today was bible study Thursday. I am drained right now, I will fill you in after tomorrow's 6am live. I will make sure to have my blogging session earlier in the day rather than later in the evening. I need to sleep now, I can barely keep my eyes open. Remember to engage, follow, share, and watch out for my next post... I love you, but Jesus loves you more.

 Today I would like to talk about something that I have been thinking a lot about lately. This involves someone of the opposite gender. Ever since I have given my life to Christ and actively sought Him, my perspective on romantic relationships has shifted drastically. Here is the story, grab a chair, it's quite long... Let me give the guy the name K. K and I have known each other for about 5 years now. We tried something back when I was in high school. It wasn't really a relationship, but at that time, it was the closest I had to a relationship. This was because was unavailable most of the time because of my strict parents and also because we lived far apart, and could only see each other whenever I got a chance to go to town, which was not very often. So most of our relationship was on the phone, basically, our relationship deepened on the phone.  Things were going smoothly until I lost my phone at school, we didn't communicate for about 3-4 months. I could only contact hi

 Today is my turn to share a devotional to Gospel of Grace Ministry, and I should also share this on the blog. The theme for today's devotional is the power of words. The Bible says in Proverbs 18:21 "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits." The tongue is the most underrated organ in the body, with no bones, made of just muscles. Are we mindful of the things we say? What kind of sayings come out of our mouths, do they destroy or do they build ? I came across another interesting scripture in the book of James, chapter 3 verse 8-10 ; "but no one can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. with it we use to bless our lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so." This verse hit hard. People us their tongues to praise and worship God at church on Sunday, but they are

Consistency is one thing that almost everyone struggles with, myself included. But ever since I started pushing myself to be consistent, I am starting to see results. It is still a learning process, but things are going well. Motivation gets most people started, but consistency (and discipline) is what keeps them going. I have pushed myself to finally start blogging, and a few people are starting to recognise my work. I am still trying to be consistent in growing my IG account, still a bit shaky, but I am hopeful that things will start to pick up soon, by God's grace.   I can't wait for my blog to become big so I can have themed days in the week but let me not get ahead of myself. This is my humble beginning. And I will be a proud mother to tell my kids that I started a blog, practiced consistency and posted every single day for 365 a row. This is a challenge that I want to do, I am challenging myself to post consistently for the next 365 days from today. Depending on how big m

In the bible, the seventh day symbolises the day of rest. God created the world in 6 days and rested on the seventh day. Today I went to church, it was amazing. Restomg does not mean sleeping the whole and not doing anything. It means not doing any hard labour, or any work that you do during the week. The day can be used to go to church, praise and give God the glory. Let me tell something one of the pastors said that hit home. He said that a relationship is a two way street, of it's a one way road, then it's not a relationship. Then he proceeded to ask; now that you know the definition of a relationship, do you have a relationship with God ?  He said that it applies to all relationships, you can't expect someone to always be there to listen to you but you don't make time to hear them out. You can't always be taking from people, that is draining the next person. And constantly being the giver is exhausting in all aspects. You cannot have a relationship with someone

Choosing to live is not easy but very rewarding in the long term. My journey with Christ has not been the easiest. There were times I found myself falling into sin, and later feeling too ashamed to go back to the father and ask for forgiveness.  But I realise now that that was the enemy planting thoughts in my head to stay away from Jesus. Sometimes, choosing to do the right thing might hurt your flesh for now, but your spirit will be eternally grateful. I am at a point in my faith where I try to keep as close to God as possible. I am actively in pursuit of an intimate relationship with him. And I want to centre our relationship around the right things. The last time I thought I was ready for the real world, I found myself in situations I would have never thought I would find myself in. Even to this day, I'm still in awe of what happened. The wound is still fresh, so it will be a testimony for another day. God has been so good to me that I think I might have one day in the week on

 My Friday was rainbow-themed, with all sorts of ups and downs. By the grace of God, I am here. I had two assessments due today, and I thank God that I was able to submit both of them on time. The first was due at 3pm and the second was due at 9pm. An unexpected trip came up, I had to travel with my mom, my sister, and my niece. My niece is a little bit under the weather, she is vomiting, and it's gross. She is 21 months old. My mom and sister are handling the situation, because I know if I go there, I will be induced to vomit as well, and that's going to be very messy. I had the feeling to pray for her, and I did.  This reminds me of the one day I went to the clinic to fetch my grandmother's medication. I came across this young girl who had a swollen foot, and she was limping. An old lady saw her and she decided to pray for the young girl, her prayer was so loud that the nurses and the other patients were staring, but she didn't seem to care. She was praying for too lo

Today is Thursday. And Thursday is reserved for bible study live sessions on IG with JesusThis Jesus That and Rorisang Thandekiso.  I've been following this tradition for the past few months and it has been amazing. Rorisang motivates me to love Jesus proudly and loudly. That is one of my reasons for switching things up on my blog. The scripture for today is from Luke 10: 25-37, The Parable of the good Samaritan. We read about the parable that Jesus tells when asked; "who is my neighbour?" Jesus tells the parable about a Samaritan man who comes across a man who was half-dead, beaten to a pulp, and stripped of everything he had. The Samaritan helped the man, covered his wounds, and cleaned him up. He took the wounded man, put him on a donkey, helped him into an inn, and paid the bill. Before the Samaritan came across the half-dead man, there was a priest who saw the man but passed by on the other side of the road. After him, a Levite saw the man and he also passed by on th

In the world we live in, most people are allowed to express their religion. There are still some countries where people are persecuted for being Christian, so they are forced to practice their faith in secret, which is definitely not easy. In my country South Africa, we have freedom of religion. Which means that we can worship whatever, whoever, and however we want. This is a privilege that not many countries have. I chose to follow Jesus because no one can get to the Father except through the Son. And also because I want to have eternal life. John 3:15 tells us that God loves the world so much that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him, would not perish, but have eternal life.  That is the ultimate portrayal of unconditional love. Whether we choose to believe or not, God loves us regardless. Even when we are unfaithful, he remains faithful. He is a never changing God. One of the things I do to remind myself of God's love is to seek Him in the little everyda

 I have decided to switch things up. After all the experiences I have had in my life, it would not be fair to let my human intelligence take credit for my survival. I have decided to use this platform to give God all the glory for everything He has done for me. My school life was not easy, but He helped me through it. I had a revelation about this.  Let me share this. There is a WhatsApp group that I am in, it's called Gospel of Grace Ministry. It is a group where we share the word of God, pray together, and seek God together. There are currently members in the group. We drew up a roster to allocate one member to one day of the week. On that day, one member is responsible for making sure that we receive a devotional before that day ends, even if it does not come from that particular member. That member is responsible for making sure that we receive the word of God on that day. Tuesday is my day. My theme for today's devotional was the story of Nehemiah. We look at how people we

Monday is recognized by many as the first day of the week. The most hated day of the week. The first workday. it's time to go back to work, or school. There are some people who work flexible jobs, they don't follow the Monday to Friday work schedule, the world is constantly eveolvong and changing. But you know what will never change, the word of God. I pray that many people realize this. The point I wanted to blog about today is that the word of God will love forever.  Don't forget to engage, follow,and share, and watch out for my next post... I love you, but Jesus loves you more Shibe M

 Today is the day we celebrate mothers all around the world. This day is celebrated on the second Sunday of May annually. On this day, people celebrate their mothers, grandparents, aunts, sisters, and everyone who plays a motherly role in someone's life. You didn't have to give birth to be a mother. Females are born to be mothers, whether you give birth or not. I also celebrate this day because I am raising 3 beautiful and amazing kids, they are my sisters' children. My eldest sister has two kids, a boy and a girl. And my other sister has one daughter. And all these kids have brought so much joy and light into my life. Seeing the good job that I am doing with raising my sisters' kids, makes me look forward to having kids of mine and building my own family. Apparently, some husbands are included in the children count. I remember one time I attended a dance class at the gym, the dance instructor said this when she introduced herself "...I have 5 kids, including my hu

Unconscious peer pressure is so real in varsity. No one can actually avoid it. Everything we do in our daily lives, we have learned or adopted from somewhere, whether good or bad. We do things a certain way because our primary guardians used to do them like that. Now I'm in varsity and I don't know anybody. It was hard to move away from everything I was used to, my family, my friends, my dog, and my room. But it is a part of growing up, everyone has to pass through this stage. As much as we wish we could stay in our houses forever, we can't, We must go out and meet new people, and make new friends. One of the sad things about my life is that I am an honest, genuine, and sincere person, I am an amazing friend but it is unfortunate that I don't find people who reciprocate that, but rather I find people who take me for granted.  My number one love language is gift-giving. If I love you, I will shower you with gifts on no special occasion. My family can be witnesses to this

 I used to struggle with procrastination, but it is much better now. It used to be so bad, that I could barely get anything done. Procrastination is truly an enemy to progress. Everyone struggles with procrastination, some people handle it better than others.  Procrastination is a hard thing to deal with especially when most of your school work is done online, you just think you have time,, but you actually don't. It's easier to get used to a traditional school where you know you must be in class at a specific time. Online classes have me attending classes from the comfort of my bed. But the sad part is that I have to redo all the work from the class, which is double the work. I am learning that, if you have the chance to do something now, do it now and don't save it for later, because it might be too swamped. This happens to me often, sometimes I plan to do something but when the time to do it comes for me to do that particular task, I find myself too comfortable and then

  Remember when Beyonce said "I can get anpther you in a minute, don't you ever for a second get to thinking you're irreplaceable" ? That staetment is becoming more and more true, thanks to artificial intelligence.  Artificial intelligence is literally becoming more human than actual humans. Beyonce's lyrics had us thinking that you can replace people in our lives, but now the existance of artificial intelligence proves that anyone human being can be replaced. And humans are not even aware that artificial intelligence might just successfully wipe out the human race. Hear me out, this is not an AI smear campaign message or anything of that sort.I am just saying this out of concern beacuse of how many people can't survive without using AI, AI is becoming more human than humans, and people actually enjoy that. Apparently people think AI makes things easy.  I was having a conversation about this with my grandmother and our conversation made me cherish the human en

  I have been asking myself recently, what is the point? Why am I doing this this? Why did I push myself to start blogging online? It took me a lot of courage to finally start blogging online,  and I can't say I regret it. Right now I am glad that I found the courage to do something that I love and carry it through. I am not really doing this for people, but I am doing it for me, even though I have the hope that people will start reading my blog.  The initial concept of the blog is not tied to one specific niche, I wanted to just write about my life experiences after high school and how being in school has shaped my life. I also wanted to write about my life experiences in general. I have been asking myself what I am going to do with all these books that I keep filling up, I will probably burn them or sell them, they have very interesting and authentic content. Writing helps me to navigate my way forward.   And I just love writing, I enjoy it, and I am good at it, and I do envision

Is there a specific age for when adulthood begins? What exactly is adulting? Does it refer to the age of an adult or is it doing adult things regardless of your age?  Adulting is one stage that everyone has to go through in life. At some point in our lives, we were all infants and didn't know anything. A few decades later we are responsible for the growth of the infants now. A few decades later, they will have to do the same, and the cycle continues.  What is expected from someone who is an 'adult'? In this day and age, the lines between kids and adults have become extremely blurred following the rise in child-led households around the world. Child-led households mean that the parents have left the family for unknown reasons and now the kids have to fend for themselves. Situations like these tend to put more pressure on the eldest children, where they now have to assume the role of the adult in the family. Now the eldest children are forced into adulthood prematurely. I had

 Do you know what the most underrated job is? Being a teacher. We are all teachers somehow, but let's talk about teaching as a profession. No one in the recent generation wants to choose teaching as a profession, I wonder why that is...  I think the teaching profession is the most underrated, everyone has had a teacher at some point in their life, a teacher from kindergarten, primary school, high school, and tertiary education. In this day and age, many pupils are losing respect for teachers, and their safety is compromised in the workplace.  Most of the things we know, from reading to writing we have been taught by our teachers. I honestly think teachers around the world are not appreciated enough. They are human beings who decide to share knowledge in a professional setting. What more can be done to show more attention to teachers? In this day and age, the need for teachers has reduced drastically. anyone can literally learn anything from the internet. Some parents decide to not

 What does it mean to be a student? Is it only going to school and sitting in class? Let me tell you what I think. Being a student is about being teachable and willing to learn new things or to learn old things differently. I believe an old dog can be taught new tricks, no one is ever too old to learn anything. At the end of the day, life is the greatest teacher. So as long as you're still alive, make every day an opportunity to learn something new. There was a point in my life where I felt like everything was going south, I kept asking myself "Why is this happening to me ?" and someone said to me "The question you should be asking is "What can I learn from this ?" That response forever altered my thought pattern and my overall perception of life. This helped me to get out of the victim mindset and actually learn from different situations. The same applies in school if you fail a grade, you will find yourself repeating another year in the same class, with d

   After a long time of convincing and pushing myself to start posting on this blog, I wouldn't do myself the disservice of going a day without posting, no matter how late it is. The world tends to become a boisterous place sometimes, how does one escape? My escape is expressed through pen and paper,...now through my blog. I am really excited to be doing this. There is no perfect way of doing something, my perfect may differ from yours. It took me so much courage to finally start writing on my laptop, starting this blog. But this counts as an attempt, if I fail, I would be happy to know that I gave this a real chance.  So, pen and paper... I started writing back in high school but it is not something I thought very highly of, it was just something I would do when I wanted to quieten down the noise around me. Writing has got me through the deepest points of my life. Even in my happy moments, my pen and paper were never far from me.  I write about anything and everything, how my day

I've been thinking about something today, besides solving for the missing angles of equilateral triangles and parallelograms, what else did I learn that I can apply in my life currently, or anything that can be applied in the real world? I had this conversation with my sister a few days ago, and she told me that high school was supposed to teach us critical thinking. I am still trying to figure that out. I have read somewhere that the school was actually created to produce employees. By the way things are, that is definitely true. Primary school prepares you for high school, high school prepares you for college, and college prepares you for work. From work, the plan will be to labour every day for minimum wage, wait to retire at 60, and receive your pension fund.  That's the school curriculum. That's the traditional schooling system in a nutshell. Now we have a new schooling system; the internet and AI. You can now get a job using a certificate you got online, in the comfor

FIRST  TIME  POSTING, WELCOME School is one thing we all have to go through in life. No one can ever be too young or too old for school. Educational institutions are just a formal setting of learning, but learning happens in our everyday lives. I have started this blog because I love writing and believe that I have a lot of knowledge and experience to share at a young age. another reason is that I would like to create a community of people who are at any stage of formal schooling, whether middle school, high school, college, adult school, or even if you're out of school.  I would like to share my knowledge and experience with anyone and everyone willing to take the time and engage with my content. This blog aims to prove that learning does not end in the formal environmental setting. Follow, engage, and share my blog so we can grow together. Watch out for my next post... x o x o Shibe M