I could never really draw a straight line.
No matter how hard I tried, my lines always seemed to wander. As a little girl, it frustrated me. Somewhere along the way, that became more than just an art lesson—it became the way I saw myself. If I couldn’t even draw a straight line, how could I be trusted with something important? I quietly began believing that because I wasn’t perfect, I wasn’t useful.
Looking back now, I realise that wasn’t just about drawing. It became the lens through which I viewed myself.
This made me struggle with identifying my value—in a place, in a position, and among people. Because of that, when I finally began to see who I was through work, ministry, and the opportunities God gave me, I held on dearly. I found safety in the patterns, in the name I had built, in the places I had been and the places I dreamed of going. Those things became the measure of my significance.
Then life happened.
I became a wife.
I became a mom.
Those beautiful callings came with sacrifices that brought me back to what felt like ground level. Suddenly, I was small again. Lost again. Unsure that my hands could bear the weight of these new responsibilities. My weaknesses whispered every now and then, reminding me of all the reasons I wasn’t enough.
Confused and cloud-eyed, I couldn’t see myself anymore. Worse still, I couldn’t see Jesus.
The waves and the storm were so loud that I lost sight of God’s perfect picture of life and love. I stopped looking at the One who called me and started looking at everything I thought I’d lost. My identity, my confidence, my purpose—all seemed to disappear beneath the weight of motherhood and change,
And for a while, I gave up.
But God has a beautiful way of drawing straight lines with crooked sticks.
As I wrestled with those feelings, I found myself thinking about Ruth.
Her life didn’t unfold the way she expected. She experienced heartbreaking loss, left behind everything familiar, and stepped into a future she couldn’t fully understand. The woman who had once been a wife found herself a widow in a foreign land. Her future looked uncertain, and yet she chose faithfulness over fear.
I wonder if she ever questioned whether God still had a purpose for her.
I know I did.
In many ways, becoming a wife and a mother felt like stepping into a field I had never walked before. It was beautiful, but it was unfamiliar. The woman I thought I knew seemed to disappear beneath diapers, responsibilities, and the daily sacrifices that no one applauds.
Yet Ruth’s story reminds me that God is just as present in the ordinary fields as He is on the mountaintops.
While Ruth faithfully gathered grain one handful at a time, God was quietly gathering together a redemption story she could never have imagined. Every ordinary act of obedience became part of an extraordinary purpose. She couldn’t see it then, but God was writing her into the lineage of Jesus.
That changed something in me.
Maybe God wasn’t asking me to become who I used to be.
Maybe He was inviting me to trust Him with who I was becoming.
It was in that place that He gently began teaching me the patient beauty of Proverbs 3:5–6:
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.”
Trusting God in unclear seasons isn’t something we master overnight. It is a daily surrender. A choice to believe His heart when we cannot understand His hand.
It was there I learnt the power of consistent prayer. It didn’t matter whether my prayers were long or eloquent. It simply mattered that I showed up. God wasn’t asking me for polished words. He was inviting me into His presence.
I learnt that I needed to continually see and speak God’s Word over every lie the enemy had planted. Feelings are loud, but God’s truth is louder when we choose to believe it.
I also learnt that healing was never meant to happen alone. We need trusted sisters, spiritual mothers, and healthy community to cover us, strengthen us, and speak life when we’ve forgotten how.
Today, I still can’t draw a perfectly straight line. But I no longer see that as a weakness.
Because I’ve discovered that it doesn’t matter if the pencil is crooked or the line doesn’t look straight. What matters is placing the pencil into the hands of the Author.
He has always been able to draw beauty from brokenness, purpose from pain, and straight lines from crooked sticks.
So if today you feel unseen, uncertain, or like you’ve lost yourself in a season you never expected, remember,
It doesn’t matter that the pencil is crooked or the line doesn’t look straight.
Just put the pencil to paper.
The Author knows exactly what story He is writing.
With love, Malama N Chifwanakeni
