Tonight,
My heart is so heavy. So full. After all the highs and lows of a busy week (or half a week, really) I am fairly exhausted. Not in a physical sense. The great and attention-grabbing things God has put on my heart are most welcome. But wow. Are they persistent. I'd consider my life, in the general sense, pretty messed up.
I mean that in the best possible way, and in an excited way. I am thrilled that God has a plan for my life to give me a hope and a future, even if that future is different than what I wanted a year ago. Which--by the way, it is. I'm going to try to write this post in "real talk" rather than "Church talk". So bear with me.
Imagine, you are raised in a small town. Your family barely gets by and your mom is expecting another child. Sure, you might be a young girl, but you've heard of girls traveling to big cities for jobs that pay well. You may even see some of the other families are able to afford things like phones and real furniture. A man visiting from the nearest city tells of some job openings, available to girls. No training required. Your mother and father insist that you go take one of these jobs, so that you can send the money back home to support your family. You want to give them all you can and be a faithful, honorable daughter. So, you gladly agree to travel to the city to be a waitress or a server in a bar. You figure that you will be a good daughter if you can get enough money to help out the family. But when you get to the city, something very different happens. Something is wrong. Strange men come to evaluate your appearance. They look at your body. Your hair. Your teeth. They beat you and abuse you until you can barely think strait. Maybe they drug you, maybe they feed you. Maybe it just depends on the trafficker. Once you've been properly broken [in], you are sold, used, used again, broken, sold, used, used again, and broken...so on and so on. You're kept alive, but barely. Maybe your family is getting money, maybe not. The only thing you know for sure is that you are owned. You do what you're told and keep quiet; maybe they won't hit you as hard. Maybe they'll be nicer. Maybe someone else will buy you and treat you better. As long as you stop feeling, caring, thinking, and hoping...you can shut the world out and numb yourself to the pain. Or at least you try to. Until...until what? What do you wait for? Why bother with emotion or thoughts of the outside world? Maybe this is normal. Maybe this is love. Doesn't every girl go through this? This must be all there is.
Now, let's try a slightly different scenario. Let's say you're raised in Houston. Or Atlanta. Or Miami. You know, one of the bigger cities in this area of our world. In this land of "freedom". Your dad is long gone, and mom barely feeds you and your brother with the welfare check that comes every month or so. You're only twelve, but hey--you've lived a lot for a girl your age. Some of your friends sell drugs to bring in money for rent. Most of them don't go to school anymore, there's really no point. It's not like any of you will get into college, but maybe you can finish high school someday. Maybe once mom can kick her habit for good and get a job. But until then, you know you have a responsibility as the oldest sibling to try to make some money. One day, a nicely dressed older gentleman--maybe 30--offers to get you a good meal. You do look a little thin. Money's been tight and you don't eat as much as you should. You agree to the strangers kindness and decide that you can smile enough to show appreciation for the meal. He tells you he's got money. So much money, he doesn't know what to do with it all. He even shows you his wallet; that's the most money you've ever seen at one time. Wow. He must really know what he's doing. He tells you that if you're nice enough to him, he'll share his money with you...but sometimes, you'll need to be nice to his friends too. It seems a little strange to you, but the thought of your baby brother starving at home is motivation enough for you to consider. Six months later, you've slept with more clients than you can keep track of. You're addicted to some drug that your pimp uses to keep you coming back to him. You haven't seen your family in months, and you don't know where you are. All the nights you've spent laying down in the back of a van, travelling hotel to hotel. Meeting man after man with his list of demands and preferences. But hey, you're good at it. And your pimp is more of a father than your real one anyways. At least he keeps you doped up enough so you don't have to feel the pain. It's all you know, so you embrace your broken and crushed spirit. You claim that incredible pain as your identity, and never question it. You end up in some small town called Bryan. You don't know where that is, but this place isn't unlike any other. There is nothing special about this town.
I wish with all my heart that these types of scenarios were uncommon. We like to think of human trafficking in the sense of the first story; as happening in a small town in another country. YES. It absolutely does happen there. It is a real problem in so many countries, but YES it is a problem in our own. It happens in Bryan. Miles from where I'm sitting--right now. There are broken girls that are used, transported, and sold while we sit in our classes and go to our meetings. Oh, how my heart breaks to think about this. I get so angry and frustrated that my hands shake and I feel like I can't breathe. Fifty. Thousand. College. Students. The HUGE Christian bubble that is Texas A&M; and many of us...just...sit. We sit. We remain unaware. Unmoved. Inactive. Where are we? What are we doing?
I just want to hold these girls and pray for them until I run out of words. I want to beg them to listen to what God can do in their hearts. I want God to miraculously open their minds to hope again. I want their pimps and traffickers to rot in jail for what they've done; but I want healing for their hearts, too. I want to sit with them as they wrestle with the pain they've experienced, I want to dry their tears and tell them how beautiful and loved they are to me and to our Savior. I want them to know the most incredible love I've ever experienced and to feel the healing that is unlike any other from a Savior that died and rose again to fight for them. To love them. To win their hearts. To bring them out of captivity. I want them to know that God wants to claim them as His daughter, redeemed and made whole through His love.
I pray that these desires will align with what He wants for me, not what I want for me. I pray that awareness will continue to grow and that these girls will be covered in prayer by men and women of incredible faith. I pray that they hold on. Just hold on, a little bit longer. Somewhere...somewhere there is hope. God will move. God will heal. God will save and rescue. I ask you to join me in prayer for these girls. Maybe there's a specific place or situation on your heart. Maybe you don't know where to start. But I ask that you pray for these women and girls, and that we would be aware of the closeness of this problem. Pray that those called to action would rise up to fight with the Lord to bring justice. Pray that the hearts of these women will be receptive to any and all ways that God is going to reveal Himself to them.
2 Cor. 3:17 "Now the Spirit is the Lord, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom"
Psalm 34:18 "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit"
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