“My name is Claire from South Africa. Ever since my grade 11 year, I was met with an inexplicable decline in my academics. Regardless of how long and hard I studied or how confident I walked into any and every examination, I would always walk out disappointed and stunned as to what exactly had happened. This issue progressed to the extent that I developed examination hysteria of some sort. All of a sudden, I would get black outs, anxiety. My head would spin or I would get hand tremors so much so that I wouldn’t be able to write. This issue carried throughout grade 11 and crossed over onto my grade 12 year, a pivotal year of my academic career. Quite frankly, I had lost hope and accepted my fate. I was convinced that I would never pass, no matter how hard I continued working. I had started to mentally prepare myself for failure. I was deluded to think that failure had become my newly assigned destiny. Ever since childhood, my firm aspiration was to one day become a medical doctor. In grade 11 and 12 I started looking for alternative job career options. I knew universities would not accept me into such a competitive field with my marks at the time (or so I thought). I was hopeless, confused and stressed. Little did I know what God had in store for me.
“In May 2024, my family and I joined our first Interactive Prayer Service on Zoom after my mother’s friend recommended us to join God’s Heart TV upon hearing about my plight. From that very first live session, I have joined consistently. Brother Chris and his team never cease to pierce my heart with a renewed hope and faith. I didn’t have any physical manifestations during the prayer to be honest and initially thought God’s grace had not located me. Lo and behold, as the year progressed, I started improving steadily. The examination hysteria fell away and my godly-rooted confidence grew. I was happier and felt ‘lighter’. When the time for university applications came, I applied for the various alternative career choices that I wasn’t necessarily interested in because still, the little fragment within me didn’t believe I would be able to achieve my dream. My mother encouraged me to cheer up, have faith and apply for medicine as well because if it was destined for me, God would make sure it would happen and so I did.
“I was very worried and uncertain as to what 2025 would look like for me. Would I pass grade 12? Would universities accept me? Even so, how would my parents afford these expensive tuition fees? Having two children in tertiary institutions isn’t easy in this economy. I write this message at my desk after a busy day of university lectures with the biggest smile on my face and the warmest feeling in my heart because of what God has done for me. I not only passed matric with distinctions in all the subjects I wrote but I got accepted to study my dream course at multiple tertiary institutions and had a company reach out to offer me a bursary to cover the cost of my tertiary studies. Right until this very day, I am in awe of the power of God and His grace that has located someone as lowly as me. I urge you all to keep living ‘Nokutenda’ – that is, ‘with faith’ – as my second name asserts. Just when you think you’re at a dead end, the Lord will carve a path for you through it all. Adjusting to the tertiary workload as well as living in a new city six hours away from home has not been easy but regardless, it is all so rewarding because I get to attest that I am living an answered prayer. When the time was right, my Lord did in fact make it happen.”