Eventually, I secretly took learners license lessons with a driving school opposite my work and I did not tell a single soul, not even my husband, who was and is my biggest supporter. You see how powerful shame is. It makes you believe that you are nothing and unworthy, and causes you to hide yourself from the very people that love you.

For some time in my adult life, I believed that I was destined for failure and that success and favor belonged to other people. I was filled with shame and a deep sense of inadequacy which was deeply reinforced when I began my journey of getting my drivers license. When most 19 year olds were already driving and had their own cars, I barely knew anything about even how to get a learners’ license.

The first few years of living in South Africa, we were considered by the state as Asylum Seekers and our papers had to be renewed every six months. This caused many complications for us. We had no official identification so we could not open bank accounts, nor obtain a drivers’ license- the normal stuff that people need administratively to function in society.

However, at some point I discovered that foreigners could apply for a traffic register number which would replace the need to have an ID number, in order to be able to take my learners’ license.

There began my journey of “shame”, which in retrospect was a journey of learning humility, perseverance and discovering what I am made of.

Wait for it!

Your girl failed her learners test 8 times!!! Yep you heard right 8 times!!!!! Why you might ask?

One of the biggest problems is that I didn’t understand the questions. The English was just too confusing for me and the anxiety of failure plagued me. No matter how much I prepared or prayed, I would fail the test.

Eventually, I secretly took learners license lessons with a driving school opposite my work and I did not tell a single soul, not even my husband, who was and is my biggest supporter. You see how powerful shame is. It makes you believe that you are nothing and unworthy, and causes you to hide yourself from the very people that love you.

On my 9th attempt, I finally passed my learners’ test!!! I wept like a child. The sting of shame was deep. It would take therapy and the love of Jesus to heal me.

The next challenge was obtaining my drivers’ license. I attempted that license test 5 times! We spent thousands of Rands to enable me to drive.

The 5th attempt was the hardest. My anxiety levels were high, we had spent so much money on lessons and frankly, I didn’t know if I could handle the shame of another failure.

I had become the butt of jokes around my friends- my inability of achieving something so simple. I once had a well-meaning friend tell me to “stop wasting your time and money, clearly driving wasn’t for people like you”. I felt STUPID and even at times behaved like it.

At one point t during this whole saga, I was able to “arrange” a Congolese driving license that would “allow” me to drive in South Africa without taking more tests. My husband flat out refused. The issue he said was me “learning how to drive properly” and not simply “getting a license”. In retrospect I am glad I didn’t go through with this shortcut, because it could have very well defined the person that I was becoming. It would have robbed me in the long term.

On the testing ground, on my 5th attempt, I made a small mistake and the officer wanted a bribe so that he could pass me. I said to him that he could fail me if he wanted, but that he would not be getting a bribe from me. I must admit thought that I was very tempted.

We drove back to the station, walked in his office and he said the most beautiful words to me- that I’ve been waiting for years to hear. YOU HAVE PASSED! I literally put my head on his desk, and I wept uncontrollably. Again.

Even after getting the license, there was still a lot of fear in actually driving. Though I have been driving for 12 years now, I still get anxious about driving on the highway (which I would do for the first time, and alone, about a year after getting the license), or driving long distances (like I did for the first time in August 2019 – when I drove my whole family almost 600km to the coast).

I am so glad I pushed trough and fought the sense of shame, my sense of being a failure and the belief that I was stupid. More importantly, I didn’t listen to the words of the nay-sayers…like those of my well-meaning friend.