Shembe Girl in the Light of Christ

The Law I Kept, The Lord I Met, and the Light That Exposed Everything

For as long as I can remember, the world was coloured by a single truth—a truth so constant, so unquestioned, that it felt like the sun rising: Shembe is God. Not figuratively. Not symbolically. Objectively. Unshakably.

I grew up in a home rooted deep in the soil of Shembe religion. We didn’t just practice it—we breathed it. I feared him, revered him, shaped my life around the laws he gave… or rather, the ones passed down to me through my mother, and through the mothers who came before her. It was a chain of devotion—each link inherited, unquestioned, unbroken.

Every Saturday we gathered. Every command was kept. And every 7th of July, the air shimmered with anticipation as young girls—myself included—marched with freshly cut sticks from iNtanda, moving in unison on the “holy” grounds of eBuhleni. It was devotion in motion, law embodied, identity performed. I had goosebumps when I saw him. I was committed—heart, body, and fear.

But beneath the devotion was a crack.

My mother was a sangoma—called, trained, and bound to her ancestors. And because her ancestors resisted Shembe, she was forbidden from entering the temple. There, in that contradiction, my confusion began. If Shembe truly brought us closer to the ancestors, why would her ancestors keep her out of his temple? The equations did not add up. The pieces refused to fit. Yet I pressed on. She stopped going, but I continued—loyal, disciplined, law-keeping.

After matric, independence brought questions. Deep questions. Questions that echoed in an empty room because no one could provide an answer. I kept the laws, but something inside me remained undone. I worshipped faithfully, but I felt unknown. I belonged externally, but internally I felt like a guest in my own religion.

The First Spark of Light

Everything changed the day I visited a friend’s church. It was January 2017—an ending and a beginning. The first service? I understood nothing of what was preached. But I felt seen. The second Sunday? Someone remembered my name and hugged me. And I wanted whatever this was—this warmth, this welcome, this love. Before I understood the gospel, I wanted the people. Before I met Christ, I tasted community. To be known. To be seen. To be loved. It awakened something.

Three months later, I was baptised. A year later, I finally opened the Scriptures for myself. And that was the moment everything came into focus. It felt like the day you finally got glasses after a lifetime of blurred vision. The world sharpens. Colours brighten. Edges appear. And you realise—I have not been seeing at all. The Word of God was my prescription. And as light poured in, emotions engulfed me, and confession rose up.

First, for worshipping a man. Second, for playing church while staying far from Christ.

The Law I Loved, The Law I Misused

But my devotion didn’t vanish—it simply took a new shape.

Trained by Shembe to keep the law, I entered church life as a modern Pharisee. I thought I was the standard of holiness. I thought my zeal equaled righteousness. I pointed out everyone’s faults—blind to my own. Even my dreams fed my pride—visions I assured myself were from the God of the Bible, even though they never appeared in the Bible. They were just visions that gave me leverage. Power. It terrified me when I saw how similar I’d become to my sangoma mother—her visions from her ancestors, mine from…well, my imagination—both of us puffed up with pride, which was a garland over our heads and a pendant to adorn our necks.

Legalism had dressed itself in Christian clothing. It had to die.

The Light That Exposes

Through Scripture, prayer, and the patient love of my church community, I finally saw myself clearly. Jeremiah 17:9 hit first: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” The shoe fit—perfectly. I was Cinderella at midnight—running, afraid that the truth of my heart would be exposed.

But God does not despise the broken. He despises the proud. Mark 7:21–23 exposed the root problem—not outside me, but inside. My heart. My sin. My darkness.

I finally saw: the problem with the world is not “them.” It’s me.

The Only Pure Heart

But light that only exposes leaves you in despair. Light that leads to Christ gives life.

As I continued searching the Scriptures, I saw the glimmer of hope: Jesus alone has a pure heart. Jesus alone needs no Saviour. Jesus alone can save. And suddenly, the god I had worshipped—Shembe—looked small. Frail. Needy. Unable to save himself, let alone save me. Christ was the true Light. And stepping into that Light was the most freeing decision of my life.

The Fear That Followed

I won’t pretend the transition was easy. The moment I stepped away from Shembe, the warnings came like storm clouds gathering over my head. I was told my ancestors would rise against me. That sickness would stalk me. That doors would slam shut. That I would never “make it in life.” Some said I had chosen a path of death—a deliberate walk into darkness.

And I felt it. Fear didn’t whisper; it roared. It wrapped itself around my ribs like cold hands. Nights became battlegrounds. Every creak in the house felt like a threat. Every setback felt like a curse. Half my heart trembled like a leaf in the wind, unsure of which voice to trust—the one of fear behind me, or the One who was calling me forward.

But God did not leave me to the shadows. His presence became the steady hand on my back, the gentle whisper in the chaos, the warmth that broke through the fear like dawn breaking through the night. He held me—patiently, persistently, tenderly—until the truth settled deep in my bones. Slowly, Philippians 1:21 became not a verse I read, but a truth I inhaled: “To live is Christ, to die is gain.” In that moment, the fear loosened its grip. I was no longer held by threats from the past, but by promises from the living God.

If my life was borrowed time, then I wanted to spend it in service of the One who gave it.

The Life He Gave

I still have dreams—big house, nice car, and definitely a pony. Those longings aren’t evil. But they cannot satisfy the way Christ satisfies. If I never receive them, I will not have lived an empty life. For what is a house compared to eternity? What is a pony compared to the presence of God? C.T. Studd said it best: “Only one life, ’twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last.” And that truth ushered me into full-time ministry—because if I am going to spend this one life, I want to spend it well.

The Light and the Life

There is no life more whole, more true, more free than a life lived in the service of the Lord. Not the Lord made by human hands. Not the lord constructed by culture, fear, or tradition. But the Lord who is Light—who exposes sin, reveals Himself, and makes us new.

My story is simple:

I kept the law. Then I met the Lord.

And His light exposed everything—so He could redeem everything.

There is no better life than this.