I’ve always been an early riser, I am at my best before 10
am, my mind and senses just seem to be sharpest early in the morning, when most
people are still sound asleep. Somehow,
as by instinct I’ve just always known that if there was anything that required a
large amount of concentration or energy for me, it was imperative that I
schedule it early in the morning. I
guess I would be what you would call a “morning person”. A rare type indeed, most people seem to
prefer sleeping in as late as possible and people like myself, who wake up
bright eyed and busy tailed seem to only irritate them further by reminding
them that eventually that will have no choice but to break their beauty sleep,
get up and join the rest of the world. I prefer to attack the world before it
attacks me; most times I’m up even before my alarm clock, checking it several
times during the night, just to make sure that it’s still working. Even at 4:30
am, which is my normal rising hour, I open my eyes, I bubbling over with
exuberance and energy, this is the time of day I am most optimistic, and
productive.
Up until about a year
ago I never really understood why I loved the morning hours so much, although I
did realize the peace and the tranquility I felt at this time of day, when the
noise of the world seem to shut down a bit, allowed me to think more clearly,
and to hear from God with a higher degree of clarity. This has been the case for me, for as long as
I can remember, so it was no surprise to me when one morning as I was working
out at the gym, I happened to tune into this one program called Life Today. As
spiritual and inspirational shows go, I am pretty discerning, some of them are
as bad as the secular shows on TV, but I like this particular program because one
of its primary missions is to raise money for various types of causes, and not
just here locally in the United States.
The founders of this program are also sensitive to the needs of our international
brothers and sisters, but what I love most is that they actively hearken to their
call. They don’t just pray for them, although prayer is a large part of their
ministry; but by consistently send mission teams, financial aid and resources
to help those in need. For me they have brought the passage of scripture to
life that says; “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, (James 1:22). I love
the fact that they literally put their money where their mouths are.
On this particular morning, the show was dedicated to the
victims of the sex trafficking industry, the images of these innocent women and
children, both boys and girls of all ages, starting as young as, three years
old, being tortured, beaten, starved and drugged against their will on a
regular basis, instantly began to break my heart. But if it weren’t enough that they were caged
and chained in a filthy, smelly environment 24 hours a day, 7 days a week like
animals, these helpless individuals are forced to engage in unclean, unsafe and
unprotected sex, sometimes in excess of 20 times a day, with total strangers.
Sadly, the prisoners of sex camps are used and abused until
their frail bodies and spirits have been broken down and depleted of all health,
strength and hope. If for any reason at
all, they are unwilling or unable to service customers, it is seen as an act of
defiance by their captors. Whether the
incompliance is a willful act of disobedience or is because they have to become
too sick or weak to physically perform the demands placed upon them. These poor souls are often rendered
incapacitated in many cases due to the contraction of a STD (Sexually Transmitted
Disease) that has gone unattended or some other illness that may result from
the constant abuse, neglect a deplorable living conditions that they are forced
to endure. They are not seen as people
but as a commodity, like cattle, to be bought and sold at will, although cattle
seem to be given higher regard and value than they are. But like cattle, when they are no longer useful
they are callously slaughtered and discarded as waste.
After watching this program for only a few minutes I could feel
knots begin to form in my stomach, a lump began growing in my throat and tears
starting to well up in my eyes. And even though I was the only one in the gym
at the time, I said to myself, “Stop, you can’t cry, not out in the open in a
public place”. So in order to avoid this
public display, almost as a reflex, I reached to change the channel. I figured if I stopped watching the program,
the discomfort that I was feeling inside would also go away as well. And if for no other reason, I wanted to
annihilate the stabbing pangs of sympathy that were starting to build inside of
my gut for these helplessly exploited women and children on the TV screen in
front of me.
I also wanted to avoid the tremendous guilt that came upon
me as I watched them living the real life version of what could only be
described as hell. Although the events
I was witnessing were happening thousands of miles away, on an island half way
around the world, it could’ve just as easily been happening right next door to
me. This could easily have been me, or
God forbid, my own precious daughter, my sister, best friend or any other
random woman or child that you or I may know for that matter. Day after day living in terror, literally
chained up and forced to live in sub-human conditions, probably wondering if
they will make it through and live to see the next day, but only to repeat the
entire horrific cycle again.
If you think that this problem is too far away to warrant
concern, all you have to do is turn on the evening news, surf the internet or
pick up a magazine and you will find story after story about women and children
who have no voice, seen merely as property to turn a dime. It’s not very hard to find stories like these,
right even in our own backyards. In fact
I believe that it’s much harder to avoid being exposed to these types of
stories than it is to find them. Trust
me, I know because I worked very hard at ignoring stories like these for years. In order to maintain my false sense of security, I would tell myself that things like that only
happened in remote third world countries,
what they did was none of my business or none of my concern and that we should
take care of home first. This was the
excuse that I used to ease my guilty conscience, because in my heart I knew
that I didn’t believe that at all.
Although I haven’t always had the courage to live a life that
demonstrated my convictions, in my heart, I’ve always believed that we all are
truly our brother’s keeper. And that
when a situation arises where someone is being wrongly persecuted, bullied or abused,
the person that stands silently by watching, doing nothing in the
face of that injustice, is just as responsible as the person who has initiated it.
For me, stories like these were proof positive that evil
influence “The Enemy” still has over this world, but for me, it also represents
the all too painful reminders of similar experiences from my own past. Experiences
that I chose to forget about and securely lock away. While growing up and even in my adult life, there
were so many times that I came dangerously close to being raped or molested,
but miraculously something or someone always intervened on my behalf and
stopped it from occurring. Unfortunately,
this was and is not the case for so many of my friends, and girls that I’ve
encountered over the years, nor has it been the case for the defenseless
victims that I saw on the program that morning. For so many other countless women and
children, both worldwide and here in our own country, cities, neighborhoods,
schools, churches and homes, there was no white knight riding in on a horse to
rescue them. Despite their cries for
help, no one came and nothing happed to intervene to prevent tragedy from
occurring in their lives. And every once
in a while, when I was still, quiet and alone, I would give myself permission to dig up my
own painful memories and analyze the meaning behind circumstances such as these,
and inevitably, I would always wind up asking myself this same question, why? Why was I so lucky, why did I always come so
close to danger only to escape? And for that matter, why was I so blessed to be
born here in a country where women had value, equality, rights and a
voice? I know that I could’ve just as
easy have been born in some impoverished country, living in a hut, starving and
wondering where my and children’s next meal was coming from. Or I could be forced by my husband or father
to sell my body in order to help support and feed the family. Honestly, the weight from the guilt that I felt when I thought of
my life and the seemingly unworthy blessings that God had bestowed upon me, was
too much for me to bear, so I kept my feelings locked away, running, ducking
and hiding from anything or anyone that reminded me of them.
And now here it was
again, another program about the very issues that had been secretly breaking my
heart, issues that I had been trying to avoid confronting for most of my life.
But for some reason
this day was different, although I felt the same impulse to turn the channel,
run away and avoid feeling the anxiety and pain that I knew would ultimately
arise if I continued to watch, in spite of my fear, I watched it anyway. But to my surprise as I continued to watch, my
pain and sympathy briefly transformed into confusion, quickly followed by
anger. So in my anger, I asked God, “Why was I spared this horrible fate and so
many of my friends, family and others were not?” “Why did you allow this to
happen to them, you could have prevented this from happening to them, just the
same as you prevented those things from happening to me?” The more I thought about it the more enraged
I became, and finally I said aloud, “Lord why don’t you do something?” And loudly and clearly He answered me, not
audibly of course, but there was no mistaking His answer, I heard it deep and
loudly down in my spirit, He simply replied, “Why don’t YOU do something?”
And immediately with those five words, it hit me, I had an
epiphany. I now had the answer to all
the questions that I had asked myself for so many years. I finally understood why I was spared and
kept safe from the clutches of destruction; it all happened the way it was
supposed to, for a purpose, for God’s purpose.
God rescued me so
that I might become a rescuer. By
sparing my life from peril God was giving me the opportunity to return the favor
that He had shown to me in rescuing me from danger all of those times. God allowed me to come just close enough to peril
in my past, so that I might feel a
strong kinship to the feelings of fear, pain and degradation that the victims
of rape, abuse and sex trafficking feel every minute of every day. My personal experiences had created a place of
pain inside of me that allowed me to a feel an intense sense of sympathy for
this certain group of people, which ultimately connected me to my true calling
and God’s intended purpose for my life. He
intended this injustice to affect my heart so passionately, so that when I saw
it, I would be unable to remain silent, to shut my eyes or turn away in cold
apathy.
But I believe that
when God said, “Why don’t YOU do something”, He wasn’t just talking to me. He was talking to me about all of us, all of
the people that God has spared from anything; if God has ever spared you from
anything, or performed a miracle on your behalf, He did it for a purpose. For anyone that has been spared from rape,
murder, a car accident, an illness, being fired or even from being punished for
a crime that you may or may have not committed, God spared you for a purpose.
In the Bible He performed
some of the most legendary miracles on behalf of the Israelites when He freed
them from slavery at the hands of the Egyptians. But He did it all for a
purpose; In scripture, He said that He spared
the Israelites so that they could be free to worship Him. God is a God of purpose; there is nothing
that He does or creates without a purpose, including each of us. We were all fashioned and placed where we are
and given certain gifts and talents to fulfill a specific calling on our
lives. We were born in exactly the right
place, we were given exactly the right parents and had exactly the right types
of experiences needed to become the people that God made us to be. Both our good and bad experiences form us
into the people that we were meant to be, no matter how painful they may have
been.
Initially, I didn’t know what I could contribute to a
problem of such magnitude, I must admit that I was intimidated when I learned that
everyday minute of every day; two victims are sex trafficked and 2880 people
are dragged into the sex slave trade against their will. I felt small in the face of such a seemingly
insurmountable problem. According to those statistics, slavery is
still very much alive and well, even in the 21st century, right here
in the United States. Actually, according
to Weave Inc. an agency dedicated to preventing violence against women, the United States is one of the top three
destination points for trafficked victims.
With states like California, New York, Texas, Nevada and even North
Carolina as one of the top destination states within the country.
These facts were
so alarming to me that I felt overwhelmed and I didn’t know what I had to
offer, of course I could contribute money to the cause and I was happy to do
that. But I felt strongly that God wanted me to do more than to just throw
money at is cause and then turn away. I
knew that there must be something else God wanted me to contribute, but what
did I have to offer? So I went over the
inventory of the talents He had entrusted me with and the first thing that came
to mind was simply to write and inform others about it. I wanted to share my passion about this
terrible crime with others because through helping others, I’ve learned that I
am in turn helping myself in the healing process.
I’m not writing this from the
prospective of having all of the answers, or any of the answers for that
matter. In fact I am writing this for
the completely opposite reason, because we need more answers and more
assistance. All I know for sure is that this
is an evil injustice that needs to be abolished, I more than anyone, understand that this is a
crime so horrible and unspeakable that it makes the average person
uncomfortable just to talk about it. I
guess that’s why you don’t see beautiful celebrities doing commercials about
it; this is a topic that we have all been guilty of shoving under the rug for
way too long. I believe the lack of
exposure is one of the main reasons that this problem has grown so quickly and
become so wide spread; like a fungus it grows fastest in dark places and the
only way to kill this fungus is expose it to the light. A solution can finally begin when we all come
together and speak out about the injustices we see and then boldly act against
them.
My entire life I had always felt so empty and unfulfilled,
constantly searching for something or someone to fill the empty feeling I had
down inside of me. If only I had known
that all of those years I spent running from my pain were unnecessary, because
in running away from my pain, I was also running away from my passion and from
my destiny. Who knew that all of this
time the solution that I was seeking to feeling fulfillment, and to finding my
strength, power and my purpose was locked away in the most unlikely of places; in
the deep, dark crevices of my most painful places.
