Shaka Authors a Debut Devotional, Blending Prophetic Insight, Poetic Prayer, and Scripture
“Written from a wounded heart and a spirit filled with hope…”
SHAKA Senwamadi’s life has been shaped by profound loss and challenge. She lost her mother at the age of six, endured the heartbreak of losing her brother to cancer eight years ago, moved on from a fiancé, and watched as a once-promising career became a heavy burden. Her journey weaves a tapestry of trials akin to those faced by biblical figures such as Abraham, Joseph, and David.
A native of Tonota raised in Francistown, Orapa and subsequently Gaborone, the 36-year-old truly embodies this comparison. Like those Israelites, her story is one of surrender, following inner promptings, and trusting God as the designer and determiner of destiny. From these hardships, she has emerged to author her debut devotional, Flawed Yet Faithful.
Published under her pen name, Shaka B Violet to honour her late mother, the 192-page spiritual guide, “A Love Story to a Glorious King,” offers over 40 biblically inspired laments and love letters. These writings invite readers on a holy pilgrimage back to a life of thriving, not just surviving.
“Flawed Yet Faithful was born in sacred moments of wrestling with weakness, in a thirst to truly know God, and in a deep need for repentance,” she says, and details how her experiences shaped the book in this spirited yet spiritually nurturing conversation with Voice Woman.
A lifelong logophile, she opens her collection of forty love letters with poetic cadence:
“Poems from the heart of Eden, written from the God I encountered in the deepest crevices of pain, loss, and ultimately hope and faith,” she writes.
For Shaka, the number forty symbolises God’s promises and reinforces the renewal of the bond between Creator and creature. Her own baptism-of-fire backstory deepens appreciation for the devotional.
An executive coach and strategy professional, the articulate author admits her past shaped her, but now it’s only a shadow of her born-again self. Raised by a single father with three brothers, she once planned her life down to the last detail: work three years, build a multimillion-pula empire, marry at 28, travel as a remote CEO (before it was popular), have twins at 30, and live happily ever after.
She was determined to see her plan through. Highly organised and self-driven, she describes herself as obsessive about order and, seldom given to deviation. By her third job – one she had not even applied for – she was terribly unfulfilled, yet she clung to it despite her sick brother’s advice to leave.
“He said to me, ‘After all, you didn’t even ask for that job. You sure can get another.’”
Baptised Catholic who once attended church faithfully yet felt disconnected, she began having honest conversations with God. In her brother’s final days, she’d prayed for his release from pain, and he passed soon after. Missing his final call left her shattered with regret, causing her to resign after the funeral; a decision she calls the best of her life.
Yet hardship continued. The man she hoped to marry was consumed by survivor’s guilt and trauma after a fatal car accident that claimed 5 lives, making their breakup inevitable.
This was followed by a business decline, which she likens to Israel’s 40 years in the wilderness.
“Though I didn’t yet know God as I do now, I leaned into prayer for faith, patience, wisdom, and healing love,” she recalls.
Soon, new doors opened, a job opportunity led to a business partnership that expanded into in-flight publications and eventually corporate publishing. But that, too, ended in spectacular failure.
Her dialogue with the Divine deepened. In 2019, encouraged by a friend, Shaka began coach certification. When COVID hit, her mental health coaching flourished.
“During a season of prayer, fasting, and early-morning reflection, I wrote ‘Equally Obedient: Eight Practical Keys to Build Sustainable Partnerships’. I would wake after midnight to write, recording over 100 voice notes of revelations. By year’s end, the draft was finished and the feedback was powerful,” she recalls.
Clergy, as well as married and divorced couples, including a man divorced for 15 years gave positive feedback. “He said the book could have saved his marriage. Still, imposter syndrome held me back: ‘Who am I, unmarried, to write on sustainable partnership?’” she second-guessed herself.
Be that as it may, the calling persisted. Shaka coached women over forty; mostly divorced and seeking restoration. The principles worked: marriages reconciled, foundations strengthened, all anchored in Scripture.
In 2022, she contacted David Corey, whose 1989 book she used in coaching. He personally replied, affirmed her calling, and shared his course materials. After reading her manuscript, he advised, “Add your soul. Don’t rush. Even if it takes a year, find it. Sit with God.”
She waited until 2023 to revisit it. Then, as her business finally stabilised in early 2024, after eight tough years, she prayed for deeper intimacy with God. “The answer startled me: ‘Leave the business’,” she recalls. “Eight years of sacrifice? And now, start again? I wrestled,” she admits.
Indeed, her experience was something approximating the narrative of Abraham’s faith test on Mount Moriah when God commanded him to sacrifice Isaac, his child of promise.
“I resisted, fasting and praying from 3 to 6am. And there, one early morning at 6am, the surrender began. I’ve been working on this for eight years. Eight is continuity; infinity. This is when I rise. You’re saying leave the business? I said, ‘Lord, then what am I going to do? Start again? ‘Ask anybody who’s been in business, nobody wants to start again from the beginning,” she narrates.
But start she did. The book offers a communion with God that’s “born out of my rhythm of worship… to help you find wholeness in God, mould your faith, and awaken the workings of the Holy Spirit within you,” she writes.
The book, she continues, is written for “those who know the weight of their flaws, and yet long to taste the fruits of knowing God.”
Structured into 8 parts, it comprises declarations, dedication, and worship. It invites readers to embrace their own wilderness-to-Canaan journey, acknowledge God as the Potter and we the clay, and finally, to commit to service and stewardship. “Outside of God, we cannot become what we were created to be,” she writes. “The journey concludes in the garden – nurture others, walking in legacy, and beholding the unveiled glory of Eden once more.”
The devotional is available to order for BWP250 at Bala Books. Or call 3930060 or WhatsApp +267 76418822 for deliveries. For updates, follow @EdenLegacyGroup on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, or visit: www.edenlegacygroup.com. Email info@edenlegacygroup.com or shaka@edenlegacygroup.com.
Coming in early 2026: ‘Equally Yoked; 8 Sacred Keys to Unlocking Purpose.’ Self-coaching journals for adults, teens, kids, as well as The Covenant Deck – a card game – are also available through Eden Legacy and used in coaching programmes. Under the Eden Legacy Group is the Eden Dialogues podcast – a sanctuary of transformation.
