When her marriage fell apart seven years ago, Gloria F. Chivaenzi found herself broken and devastated. But in the midst of her pain, she chose to care for her body and value herself more. Today, she is on a mission to remind women, particularly single mothers, that they are precious and valuable. This is her story in her own words:
I am a 34-year-old single mom of two, Jayden and Jayda. I was born and raised in Harare, Zimbabwe before moving to Dubai in 2014. I married at the age of 21 and I still had many expectations, many goals and aspirations that I abandoned.
I must say, I forgot myself after having babies and stopped looking after myself, which resulted in me gaining so much weight and getting depressed. In a bid to rejuvenate me, to find myself and peace, my late mother opened a door for me to travel to Dubai. During that time, things in my marriage were deteriorating, which then led to our divorce after seven years of marriage.
The divorce made me cut off some relationships because of that empty feeling in me. With all these things in my mind, I decided to change some things about myself, which was a big step towards getting where I am today.
I am currently working as a security guard (“Mahobho”) here in Dubai. I am the founder of GloMoments, Prayer Birthing Place, and iGloFitness. iGloFitness is a women’s weight loss and makeover platform which seeks to restore women from feeling worthless, unhealthy and inferior.
Sadly, in the body of Christ, we have women who are able to pray and move mountains, yet they neglect their outward look or their health status. Many have high blood pressure, diabetes, severe period pain, which I discovered through constant research for iGloFitness, that when one works out and watches how they eat, all these can be a thing of the past.
Personally, I struggled with self-confidence levels, but after my makeover, now I don’t struggle to fit in. Through the various conferences that I have shared for myself or as a guest, I feel that now I can stand up and represent myself at any level without feeling ashamed.
Many times. I was looked down upon because of my job as a security guard until I began to realize that people don’t respect the profession but what you bring with the profession. So, in a way, I went from being a weakness into a strength.
My goal is to reach a thousand women fit in Christ. Currently at iGloFitness, we have 45 women working on their bodies coached by me.
Being a single mother with a son and a daughter, I have realized that I am a mentor by default because my daughter sees who she wants to become in me, so I have a task to outdo the woman in the mirror.
My advice to other women is that, we are mentors to people we don’t even know no matter how small our impact, and we are here to give hope to the next generation. In June I started a movement to raise an awareness among the singles and single mothers that if you are divorced or have children out of wedlock, it does not reduce your value in the society.
We had an online conference called ‘Unodhura’ (you are precious). We had great speakers who came to alarm this truth to resonate it in women. We saw many women liberated and come to the full knowledge of who they are in Christ and in society.
Not only does our society look down upon women, the society is full of women who bring each other down too, and I am here to change the narrative. My goal is to pull, push and forward every woman I meet to the next level.
I was faced with body shaming and so much character assassination, but through it all, God has made a message out of a mess. And to whoever reads this, don’t be short-sighted by the present challenges. Better days are ahead.
The Bible says in John 8 that they brought a woman to Jesus after she had committed adultery. Their goal was to kill her; they had concluded for her. I don’t know, maybe you feel concluded for like the end is here because of failure in marriage or business, but hear me. She gets to Jesus, the giver of life. With a death sentence hanging over her head, Jesus says, “Begin here. Go and live. There is hope for you in the land of the living.”
As a woman, remember this: Unodhura (you are precious).
