Zibuyile iinkokheli

“Zee, you’ve gone through so many transitions over the past few years without having much time to process anything. You went from being a medical student to being a doctor. Before you could even adjust to being a doctor you were thrown into the deep trenches of the pandemic. Then when you started finding your feet under very abnormal circumstances, you relocated to a different province with new languages and cultures with even bigger responsibilities. There was little time between all these changes yet here you are again, at a point of transition. The difference this time is that you have some time to process it all.

Did you know that big companies don’t just implement change abruptly? They introduce the idea to their employees gradually, in steps, so that everyone gets time to prepare, adjust and align themselves with the vision. When a company rebrands, everyone looking from the outside wakes up to a huge billboard announcement or TV ad with logo changes and everything. To us, it might feel like a surprise, a sudden move.

However, have you ever considered that for the people working behind the scenes in the company, the big reveal doesn’t come as a shock to them? Have you thought about the fact that there were meetings upon meetings, disagreements and discussions, possible resistance to change with some people quitting and many other things that we have no insight of? Change needs to be managed, otherwise the company risks losing loyal employees and money. Manage your change Zee.” – Pst Lindi

This is a very paraphrased version of the conversation I had with my MommyPastor earlier this year as I was trying to make sense of what had become my new reality. I’m still trying to coin a different term to describe the nature of our relationship because to me, she has been literally both: a Mother, tending to teenage me with great kindness and affection as I navigated life into adulthood far from home and a Pastor, shepherding my soul as I follow Jesus Christ.

I highly recommend being planted in a local church y’all. It is God’s gift to us. I’ll even take it a step further and say, don’t just be planted because although dead trees still have their roots in the ground, they produce zero fruit. Be planted and be productive. Submit and serve. Be known. Play your part as a member of this great body that is the Church and watch your life become better. If you’re reading this and are looking for a place to call home, people to call family in Cape Town, this is your personal invitation to @rucccapetown. Pop me a message on Instagram: @zibuyile_zz or Facebook: Zoluntu Mpantsha.

I digress…but I couldn’t just glide over that. I couldn’t.

Hey Leader!

Winter has to come. Change needs to be managed. Do not squander this season.

If you’ve been keeping up with my recent blog posts, you will know that I have recently found the vocabulary to describe this specific period in my life and to my surprise and heart’s delight, I discovered that by simply sharing my process, one or two people have also been able to make sense of their own season.

I previously mentioned that I felt caught off guard by winter because it seemingly came without warning. Correction. The signs that winter was approaching were there. I chose to ignore them and continued with life in that not-so-blissful state. I chose to ignore the gusts of chilled wind during my beach walks. I paid no mind to the fact that the progressively longer nights caused my body to want to snuggle up in bed a little longer. I admired the pretty winter fashion displays at the mall without consideration of my summer wardrobe from the previous season. So when winter eventually arrived, I wasn’t as prepared as I would’ve been had I took the necessary actions timeously.

I could go into some industrial psychology for this one but let’s talk about managing change in the context of seasons for a moment. It’s amazing how through nature, God has given us a blueprint for everything pertaining to life and living. There are many ways in which flora and fauna deal with a change in seasons and I could never exhaust them all so I’ll just go through the handful that I related to the most.

Preparation. Hibernation. Migration. Resistance. Acclimatisation.

Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest – and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man.

Proverbs 6:6-11 (NIV)

Now try reading that in The Passion Translation (TPT) and Amplified version (AMP) and fetch your life!

Growing up, I went to Umtata Christian School and one of my highlights was learning how to memorize Scripture. This was an actual subject with specific monthly requirements. We memorized the book of Proverbs, John and and and. To 10-year old me, it was just Scripture memorization, another thing to check off my list of personal weekly goals and add a Bible sticker to my star chart (I’ll tell the stories of my primary school days some other time). But you know what? The thing about God’s Word is that once it is “hidden in your heart” and “engraved like a tablet bound around your neck”, it’s there to stay. Whether you understand it or not. To me, memorizing the Word was easy, my young brain was pliable in that regard. Understanding came much later in life.

Proverbs 6:6 however, came with a very clear understanding. Firstly, I was offended by it. How dare the Bible call me a sluggard (lazy; a nuisance to others because I have little to offer to those who require my service because of my laziness). How dare! Then my tender heart got over the offence and actually meditated on what the rest of the message was – an instruction to take notes from how ants behave.

To you and I, ants are a nuisance. When we see them in a procession in any part of our homes, we are very quick to grab a broom and dustpan, trace their steps while sweeping them off to get to the source of their gathering. What we don’t consider is the fact that when ants do this, they are diligently gathering food to store up for their winter season when conditions won’t be favourable for them to work.

I watch a lot of documentaries ranging from true crime to NatGeo to how stuff is made to “What on earth is this but I need to know it in case the info comes in handy”. This explains a lot of the random things I know. So I’ve sort of studied ants and man oh man! Those tiny creatures are diligent and resolute about their business! I won’t speak much about ants but do yourself a favour and watch a documentary or two about them.

Preparation

I know I said I felt unprepared for the inescapable winter but reality is, when I sat down with myself I realised that I was in fact ready to weather the season graciously. I didn’t think so at first but I was. My childhood? Varsity? The detours? Ministry? Doctoring? Those were all preparation for here and now. Well of course, when I lived through those times, they were not presented to me as “You’re being prepared for 2023 and beyond.”

Hence, I didn’t regard them as such. Even so, they were filled with nuggets and experiences that if banked properly, would later yield great returns. Nothing that you ever go through, whether good or bad, is a waste. Nothing. Do not for a minute let the devil fool you into believing in happenstance. There is no such. We serve a very intentional God and in Him, every detail has its purpose. Even the sour parts of our lives, He is able to turn them around to work for our good.

Hibernation

This is a stage in which animals or plants pass the winter in an inactive or dormant state. The most commonly known animals to hibernate are bears. At this time, there is minimal activity because the animal needs to preserve its energy for when it cannot go out to find food due to the harsh weather conditions. The bear at this point relies on the fat stores that it had gathered up during its preparation phase. The available supplies are reserved for vital functions only, no extras. So the body temperature will drop, breathing slows down and the heart beats a little slower than usual. Hello slower metabolic rate. Hello less energy requirements and consumption. Hello survival.

Some seeds do not germinate during winter for this very reason. Survival is at stake so the energy required to nourish a seedling is reserved to ensure that the seed stays “alive” long enough to see the next season and bring forth fruits that will perpetuate more seeds for generations to come. I found myself knee-deep in the hibernation phase and this is when trouble began.

Since there was little to no activity in my life, alarm bells went off in my head because bradypnoea and bradycardia (slow respiratory and heart rates) in medicine are seldom a good sign. Granted, there are instances where these are survival mechanisms and on occasion, where we can induce them in exceptional situations. But generally, my doctor brain always has its guards up when confronted with these.

I went from working everyday with overlaps in days due to 30+ hour shifts, a steady, reliable source of income and a predictable schedule to not working or working one to two days a week at best, relying on my emergency savings (remember the preparation phase) no schedule and literally living life one day at a time. Doing the bare minimum. Preserving my stores for vital functions only. All this change took place within a matter of hours (31 December 2022 – 01 January 2023).

It wasn’t until I made a conscious decision to dub the hibernation phase as a period of rest, recovery and recourse. Of course, this was during the conversation I alluded to earlier. Initially, all I saw was a state of emergency and I panicked but in reality, for what I believe God is calling me into, I needed to hibernate for a while. I needed to come to terms with the fact that for a busybody like me, hibernation didn’t equal laziness. That was hard, still is.

Migration

Unlike bears and seeds, some birds, fish and land animals migrate to escape the winter. This is crucial for their survival and reproduction because they don’t have the same capacity and mechanisms required for hibernation. So they literally swim, run or fly away from their ‘problem’ which is winter. They move from their usual place of residence to a different region or habitat which will be conducive for their survival.

In my state of panic, I almost did the same thing. Not knowing that I was wired for hibernation and not migration. I almost ran aka rebelled from Cape Town despite the instruction to return. I remember the day I was caught between a rock and a hard place, ready to pack my bags and book a one-way flight (my car would be shipped) to return probably when things got better. The whisper that spoke to me at the crossroads mentioned in my previous post https://zibuyileiinkokheli.com/2023/10/05/winter-has-to-come/, the Holy Spirit, was as loud as day saying, “Yep. I dare you to do that. Go ahead…” and other things I’m not at liberty to share at this stage.

That dare was more like a reprimand. So I spoke to my heart and remained put. You see the thing is, I was planning on running away from what was a difficult season that I couldn’t pray myself out of (note that I said pray out of and not pray through, huge difference). What I didn’t factor in was that some animals die during the process of migration. Literally. They die. The commotion of migration may result in a stampede should a predator pose a threat to them. Others die because their bodies aren’t prepared enough for the journey itself. Some reach the destination but never return to the place where they are meant to be. So I stayed put.

Do what you will with that information.

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colours. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.

If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get His help, and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who “worry their prayers” are like wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.

James 1:2-8 (MSG)

Resistance

So I eventually got over the angst of winter, after much travail. I saw it for what it was, called it by name and dealt with it as such. However, what I didn’t bet on was the overwhelming feeling of wanting to resist against everything I had already worked at. The thing about Cape Town winter is that when it arrives, it never wants to leave. Spring had sprung everywhere else but we were in the midst of torrential rainstorms.

The floods came and posed a threat to what I thought was a solid foundation. In retrospect, praise be to God because the foundation was immovable in spite of how I felt in the moment. Nonetheless, because of what was or rather, was not happening in respect to what I assumed was upcoming spring, the aching to resist arose. I stayed put but man was I resistant to God’s ordering of my steps.

The silence on this platform? I initially regarded it as just me not having the right words to say and not wanting to prematurely speak. Yep. I had wrapped it up in a pretty box full of excuses. That was resistance. Me choosing to wake up every morning to write something, anything, that’s me fighting against me.

Sometimes it was a matter of not even knowing where to start. That’s still the case with many other things. Yet I am determined to push through that part as well. Sure, the devil playing in my ear had a lot to do with my inaction despite God’s leading but I won’t give him any more credit than that.

Acclimatisation

That is where I am currently. A place where all of my faculties, my entire being has adapted to winter. Adapted, meaning that these changes are proving to be beneficial currently but when spring comes, there is an ability to re-adjust to the newness that comes with it. My breathing will normalise, my heart regulate accordingly and I will be back in full function. Of course I will come out of winter a changed person, but I am confident of this one thing, none of this will be wasted. Not one bit.

As you do life and lead, I hope you will recognize change (especially winter) as it comes. I pray that you will manage the change, and yourself, accordingly – knowing that God gives wisdom liberally without scolding, as you ask for it.