As a child, I really struggled with fear. My Mom gave me a few scriptures to memorise, so that when I was afraid, especially at night, I could recite them and it would bring peace to me. Psalm 91 was one of those passages. Through the years I continued to face various fears and Psalm 91 was one of my anchors.

In 2016, I began journey of overcoming those fears, one by one, with Holy Spirit guiding me through it all. It wasn’t easy. I was afraid of many things, but the Lord has delivered me. As Psalm 91 began to become, not just a verse that I recited when I was afraid, but it became a reality in my life.

In 2017, we were blessed as a family with a holiday in New Zealand. The Lord told me, “You’re not going to come back the way you went.” I experienced some health issues while we were there, but needed to wait to come back to South Africa to see my doctor. So, I began to pray. I went on a prayer walk almost every morning. As I prayed, God began to deal with issues and fears in my life.

Coming back to South Africa 7 weeks later, as we walked into the airport to be fetched in Cape Town, I just felt this blanket of heaviness coming down. As I felt this heaviness, the Lord spoke to me and said, “You can either accept the fear and live under the fear, or you can walk free of it. It’s your choice today.” Right there and then, I made a decision in the corridor at the airport. I chose not to live under the blanket of fear. And so, began my journey in really living by faith.

During Lockdown in 2020, I woke up one morning with a vivid picture of the map of South Africa. I saw South Africa was red and these chains around it that were breaking. I felt an urge to paint it and picked up a scrap piece of paper, printed a map of South Africa and drew chains and painted it. I’m not an artist, but I had attended some classes and I asked Holy Spirit to guide me. The last piece He gave me was a jar of oil being poured out over our nation. As I painted, the Holy Spirit gave me the words from Psalm 107:14 “He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and broke their chains in pieces.” So, I wrote these words on the picture. I sensed that the Lord wanted me to pray that the chains of slavery (in whatever form) be broken over South Africa.

I said to the Lord, “What must I do with it?” It was on a scrap piece of paper. “Must I put it in my house?” And the Lord said to me “Share it with your friends.” So I did. Some of them asked “Can we share it? This is so powerful.”

The next day He gave me another scripture to pray over South Africa and so it went on.

And one day He asked me, “Are you willing to make this your mission – to pray for your country.”

And I said, “Yes Lord, I will do that if that is what You called me to do.”

So that has been my journey since then. God would give me a picture and a prayer, and then I share it to encourage others to pray in faith over our nation.

In June 2021, I presented a workshop on Prayer Journaling. The Lord gave me Psalm 91 to use to show people how to prayer journal, using the Word. Not knowing that the next day we would be plunged back into Level 4 Lockdown again.

A few days later, on the 1st of July 2021, He gave me a picture for Psalm 91:1 and a prayer and I drew it. The next day, He gave me the next verse. By the third day, I thought “Okay, I am going to be doing Psalm 91, verse by verse.” For 16 days, that is what the Lord gave me - Psalm 91.

During this time, Belinda A. Weber, an author friend sent me a message and said, “I see your pictures of Psalm 91. I see you sitting in your workroom surrounded by pencil sketches of Psalm 91, each verse. But I see you putting this into a book.”

I thought, “Mmm I’m not an author, I’m the one that supports the authors.” After a second confirmation from my friend Anneline of Sela Books, the journey began of taking the prayers God had given me and the studies I had done while journaling them to make them more readable in a book with the pictures.

A little bit of background: I am actually a dancer. I love to worship God through dance. I have taught dance in churches and been part of the Christian dance movement since 1988. One of the things that God has given me is a passion for His word. When I teach people, I don’t want to just teach you to dance, I want them to see what the Word says about it. I like to delve into the Greek and Hebrew meanings of the words.

So that is what is in Protected: what is the original meaning of Psalm 91, the context, who wrote it.

It is my prayer that each one of us would know what it is to be HIDDEN IN HIM, to walk understanding His protection. There were so many gems and nuggets God has shown me as I studied this Psalm that I had never seen before, because I just memorised and recited it.

It is pocket sized because I really believe it is something that some people need to carry around with them.

My prayer is that people be released from fear and understand God’s protection, that He really does protect and look after us.