I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.
Jeremiah 31:33
My home wasn't what most people would describe as a Christian home. We didn't attend church regularly and conversations about God weren't a constant part of family life.
Yet when I look back now, I can see that God was present long before I knew how to recognise Him.
When I think of my childhood, one sound rises above all others.
The sound of my mother's laughter.
It echoes through my memories and even now, her laughter is so full and hearty.
What strikes me most is that many of those memories were formed during seasons that I now understand were far from easy. My mother carried burdens that would have broken many people. Rejected by members of her own family because of the colour of her children, she found herself navigating life with courage and determination while supporting our family largely on her own.
Many mornings she left for work before we were awake. Many evenings she returned home only to continue working. Yet somehow, in the middle of all of it, there was still singing. Still generosity. Still room for hope.
I can still picture her singing along to the radio while plaiting leather belts from home.
I can still hear her laughter.
Not because life was easy, but because something deeper sustained her.
Looking back, I realise I was witnessing faith.
Not faith as performance.
Not faith as certainty.
Not faith as having all the answers.
Faith expressed through perseverance. Through generosity. Through kindness. Through choosing hope when circumstances offered every reason to do otherwise.
There are people whose lives quietly preach sermons. They gather in the lonely. They feed the hungry. They make room for the lost. They offer comfort without demanding recognition.
My mother has always been one of those people.
The older I become, the more I realise that some of the most profound expressions of faith do not take place behind pulpits or within church walls. They happen around kitchen tables. In workplaces. In ordinary homes. In the countless unseen moments where someone chooses love over resentment, generosity over self-protection, and hope over despair.
The Scriptures tell us: "I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts." Jeremiah 31:33. When I think about that verse, I think about my mum.
She rarely spoke at length about theology, yet snippets of Scripture seemed woven into the fabric of her life. Phrases of hope and trust would surface naturally in conversation.
"When one door closes, another opens," she would say.
At the time, they seemed like simple words.
Now I see the deeper faith that sat beneath them.
Those small seeds remained with me for years.
In truth, it took a long time for those seeds to take root. There were seasons when I tried to carry everything myself. Seasons where I believed that if I didn't hold life together, nobody else would.
It wasn't until I found myself exhausted, overwhelmed, and running out of answers that I finally cried out to God for help.
I was forty-three years old.
What I expected was disappointment.
What I encountered was compassion.
The overwhelming sense of God's presence was unlike anything I had ever experienced. There was no condemnation. No shame. No accusation.
Only love.
Only the deep reassurance of being held.
In that moment, I understood something that my mother had somehow known all along.
Faith is not about having life under control.
Faith is about trusting the One who does.
The Lord had been patiently drawing me towards Himself for years through countless small moments, gentle invitations, and the example of a woman whose life reflected His character more than she probably ever realised.
Psalm 34 says: "The Lord is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Those words became real to me because I discovered them in my own life.
The older I get, the more convinced I become that God is always working in ways we cannot yet see. Sometimes through churches. Sometimes through sermons. Sometimes through dramatic encounters.
And sometimes through the sound of a mother's laughter echoing through a home.
Not all Christians are found in churches.
Some are found in kitchens, workshops, living rooms, and ordinary homes.
Some reveal God's presence not through what they say, but through the way they love.
My mother is one of them.
And perhaps that was God's plan all along — to let me encounter His faithfulness in her life long before I understood His name.