Stories of real faith. Helana Olivier
completely and entrust my life into his hands, I choose an exciting life journey full of surprises together with a Traveller Who is always there for me and carries me through every crisis!
The Bible is full of guidelines on how to make right choices. Of course it is no magic instruction book with crystal clear answers to questions such as whether I should marry John or Peter. But the Bible does give me general guidelines and principles and norms in the light of which I must make my decisions and according to which I can act. In addition, God’s Spirit gives me a deep peace when I act according to his will.
Many choices I have made in my life have sent my life in a specific direction, but the one choice that changed my life irrevocably was the choice I made in a hospital bed at 16 to go and study theology. But was it my choice, I wonder now, or was it God’s grace that drove me to get up after the horror accident that tied me to a hospital bed for three months? Yes, I definitely think we need God in order to choose right, to choose to remain in his will.
A car accident changes the course of my life!
I was sixteen years old. My friend Liesl and I went for a drive on the other side of our farm with the farm Jeep. As a farm girl I had been driving since junior school and knew all the dirt roads around our farm like the back of my hand. But that Saturday morning I misjudged a road that had been graded that morning, and rolled the vehicle on a bend. I don’t remember much of the accident, as I was unconscious for a long time. I just remember being woken by a scraping sound. A doctor was busy stitching up the gaping wound on my forehead.
When I regained consciousness, I found that I had broken my pelvis in two places, sustained a serious knee injury and had cuts across my head and face. As a result of all the injuries I would be bedridden for three months.
My young body was broken, my hair shaved off because of the head wounds, the long bed rest caused my muscles to waste away, I was tortured by bedsores, by skin came out in a rash as a result of poor circulation and medication and, as a teenage girl, I was disgusted by my own appearance.
Three months is a long time to be flat on your back. You are constantly struggling with your thoughts and mulling about the meaning of life. Mention was made that I would be left with a limp. Like everyone in a crisis I went though several phases in dealing with it. First there was the phase of denial, then rage, I even blamed God for allowing this misfortune to strike me! And then one reaches what psychologists call the bargaining phase. I asked God – no, pleaded with Him – that I should just be allowed to walk normally again; if He did that for me, I promised, I would go and study theology. Yes, it was a naïve and human promise, but a choice I made there in the hospital bed, and it set my life on a new course.
After what felt like an eternity, I was discharged from the hospital. For months I walked with a leg brace, and in the end I was able to walk normally again.
Did I choose right?
I was passionate about fulfilling my promise to God to study theology. I changed my choice of subjects at school, dropped Art and took Biblical Studies, but before I was to go to university, I secretly decided that this field of study was not intended for me or for a woman, and that I would rather study something else.
I carried the doubt in my heart for a few weeks, and minutes after I had mentioned it to a friend for the first time, I was involved in another car accident.
For the second time in less than two years, I found myself bleeding in the trauma unit. A doctor gave me the shocking news that I might have broken my neck. This second car accident reminded me of the choices and promises I had made after the first one. In those anxious moments in the trauma unit, I realised I would have to be faithful to my commitments. Ecclesiastes 5:4–5 emphasises that when we have promised God something, we should not delay in fulfilling it.
I was discharged from hospital days later with only a neck brace and some bone fractures – a few ribs, my nose and my sternum. My neck had turned out not to be broken as the doctors had suspected. I praise the Lord for that to this day!
When I walked into the Faculty of Theology at the University of Pretoria a few weeks later, I felt as though I had come home. A deep peace about the choice of my field of study came over me, and I just knew that this was where I had to be. My fellow students and professors inspired me and I thoroughly enjoyed the challenging course.
Of course there were challenges during the six years of study. Apart from the fact that it was a very long haul and that Greek and Hebrew were torture, there were also times when Church History, Dogmatics and the digging deeper into Theology robbed me of my spiritual spontaneity. I had to keep reminding myself that Theology was not a teaching but a lifestyle! When you learn, for example, how damaging it can be to quote Bible verses out of context, and that this can ruin someone’s life, you become very cautious about offering opinions. As a Theology student, you realise more and more each day how little you really know about God; you realise that He is more than you had imagined all your life; He is not a “tame god” or home idol you can control; our limited understanding cannot define the extent of His greatness. And sometimes that makes you wonder why you even try.
There is a lovely story that illustrates my desperation beautifully. It tells of St Augustine walking along the seashore and thinking deeply about the doctrine of the Trinity when he came across a little boy scooping up water from the sea and pouring it into a hole in the sand. “What are you doing?” St Augustine asked the boy. “I’m pouring the sea into this hole!” came the answer. St Augustine walked on, reflecting, “Am I not attempting the same impossible task as that boy? Can I, with my limited understanding, encompass the depth, extent and infinity of God’s being in a definition?”
During my studies I came to a point in my journey with God where I realised that I would never be able to understand or answer every theological conundrum and, after many struggles with God and myself, I realised that this was OK! We can’t understand everything about God – that is why He is God. I stopped struggling about questions around things like suffering and began to live in wonder at God. Jesus’ admonition to become like a child became a reality for me.
Confucius said, “Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance,” and Benjamin Disraeli affirmed this when he said, “To be conscious that you are ignorant of the facts is a great step to knowledge.”
Another challenge in my growth as a theologian came shortly after I had completed my studies. A well-known television presenter, with whom I shared the story of my calling, reacted bluntly with the words, “Oh, so your God breaks your bones when you don’t keep your promises to Him!”
“No,” my being cried out, “you didn’t hear me right!” I had to learn that non-believers easily perceive our “church language” as cheap answers and that our task is, in the first instance, to live out God’s love for them, and when we have to say something we dare not take God or His word lightly or flippantly. Nor may we take on a holier-than-thou tone with non-believers; we need to come from a place of compassion. It is, after all, a case of one sinner telling another about God’s great mercy!
The decisions you make can change your life!
My years as a student at the University of Pretoria were a wonderful and fulfilling time. My dream was to work with women – to minister to both their inner and outer beings. I had always had an interest in the beauty industry: Willa Krause Skincare is part of our family business. On completion of my studies I was approached by the popular publication, Finesse, a glossy lifestyle magazine for Christian women, to become the editor. I had the women’s ministry of my dreams, serving both the inner and the outer woman. I still write a spiritual column for the magazine, but am now more involved in our family business and minister part-time at the Kameeldrif Dutch Reformed Church. I am also involved in spiritual radio and television, a dynamic ministry that extends beyond the borders of congregation and parish. This is a privilege, and I give God the glory for it!
What would have happened had God not helped me choose?
Yes, it was my choice not to give up all hope there on the hospital bed when the car accident turned my life upside down at the age of sixteen. But I also know that I wasn’t strong enough to make that decision on my own. God