I am a recovering Army brat who loves to travel and start new adventures. My handsome husband and I met at Oklahoma Christian University and he whisked me away to Kansas. So, I bought some ruby red high heels and made Topeka my home. I have a rough and rowdy Princess 4-year-old girl, amazing twin boys (almost 3) and a newborn baby girl who all make every day an adventure. We are grateful to be part of an amazing church in Topeka who regularly challenges and encourages our whole family. I have been both a full-time working mom and a stay-at-home-mom and/or both at the same time at one point or another. I am constantly seeking God’s wisdom on “balancing it all” and following His plan for my life, not mine.
Last week my nearly three year old son had a splinter in the bottom of his foot. I told him to wear shoes outside on our wooden playset, but he chose to disobey and took them off before climbing the ladder. Lo and behold, he got a huge splinter. And it hurt him a lot.
My husband was working late that evening so it was just me versus the splinter. BIG SIGH.
I tried a few different tactics with my little boy trying to gain access to the bottom of his foot with my needle-nose tweezers, but he screamed and wiggled before I even touched him. I found myself contemplating sitting on him to keep him still. Seriously.
Finally, I grabbed him up in my arms and held him tight. I told him I needed him to relax and calm down and focus on the movie I turned on so I could help his foot feel so much better. He looked at me with tear-filled eyes and cried, “But mommy, no! I love the splinter.”
Suddenly, it struck me how similarly we act when we have a “splinter”–something harmful we hold on to when God is trying to make us new. But we can’t seem to let it go.
Whether it’s a particular sin we are struggling with, something we aren’t trusting the Lord with in our lives, a pain we are holding on to, or lack of obedience in our lives–how many times have you held on to your “splinter” and said you loved it instead of letting Christ heal your heart?
“How abundant are the good things that you have stored up for those who fear you, that you bestow in the sight of all, on those who take refuge in you.“
It also reminded me of C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce when he describes the man with the Red Lizard. I found a partial transcript in Christianity Today if you want to read a longer segment, but pick up the whole book if you haven’t already. In this story, a man has a lizard on his shoulder which represents sin in his life. It’s a startling allegory about what separates us from God.
A mighty angel approached the man and asked, “Would you like me to make the lizard quiet?”
“Of course I would,” said the Ghost.
“Then I will kill him,” said the Angel, taking a step forward.
“Oh—ah—look out! You’re burning me. Keep away!” said the Ghost, retreating.
“Don’t you want him killed?”
“You didn’t say anything about killing him at first. I hardly meant to bother you with anything so drastic as that.”
“It’s the only way,” said the Angel…. “Shall I kill it?”
“Look! It’s gone to sleep of its own accord. I’m sure it’ll be all right now. Thanks ever so much.”
…
After much discussion and indecision, the man finally allows the Angel to kill the lizard. As the lizard dies, it transforms into a dazzling white stallion.
The man, now free from his torment, climbed upon the stallion that had been his sin and rode into the glowing sunrise toward the Savior.
That is available to all of us. We can be free from our torment. Free from the sin in our lives.
Galatians 5:1 assures us, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” {sin}
Walking around life with “splinters” in our feet is slavery. What pain, what agony, what self-inflicted misery we can wallow in if we don’t seek the forgiveness, restoration, and loving healing of Jesus Christ.
Why is our old nature so hard to let go of sometimes? We think it will hurt, and it might a little…but life will be so much better afterward.
Do you have a “splinter” in your life that you need to surrender to God? Have you experienced the forgiveness and healing of Christ? Did you know that even though it seems incredibly hard to be refined by God through repentance and obedience and trust in the Lord, that He loves you and wants to see you restored, healed, and following Him?
“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh,in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
Hi! Born in the great state of Texas and raised in the northern suburbs of Atlanta, this Daughter of the Alamo/Georgia Peach is still adjusting to life in Razorback Nation! My husband and I live just outside of Little Rock, Arkansas with our two toddlers and two crazy pups. I’m a small business owner, chocolate aficionado, and travel lover with a 2pm coffee hour no matter what time zone I’m in!
Meet Sarah. Sarah was 12 years old when approached by a friendly, nice-looking lady at the mall in her affluent Atlanta neighborhood. The lady asked Sarah if her parents had ever looked into getting her into modeling. When Sarah said, “No,” the woman invited her to fill out a quick form with some basic information including her parents’ and siblings’ names and ages, their home address, and Sarah’s cell phone number. The woman asked if Sarah could follow her to her car where her camera was for a quick headshot to accompany the form. Once there, Sarah was raped by three different men. Afterwards, they told her they’d do the same thing to her siblings if Sarah told anyone what had happened. They let Sarah go, and she found her friends right as her mom came to pick her up. Sarah was too fearful to tell her mom what happened. The woman continues to contact Sarah by cell phone demanding meetings, or otherwise she’ll kidnap her siblings. Each time, Sarah goes to the meeting place to protect her siblings and is raped.
Meet Jon. Jon was born in Thailand, the fifth and youngest child of his parents. In Thailand’s culture, the youngest child supports the parents and older siblings financially once they are old enough. The quickest way to earn the money necessary to support so many adults is sex. Boy prostitutes don’t make as much money as girl prostitutes, so Jon’s parents put him through the appropriate sex-change surgeries as an infant to make him a girl. Jon is now 15 years old. He goes by Jonnie, and works the bars as a sex slave hoping one day an American businessman will like him enough to buy him from his pimp.
Meet Jai. Jai is a high school junior in Little Rock with a 4.0 GPA. Her family (mom and three sisters) lives off WIC, disability, and subsidized housing and healthcare. Her mom was diagnosed with cancer when Jai was 10. Jai works at Burger King after school and uses the money to help support her family. One of Jai’s teachers at school notices that Jai hasn’t signed up for any after-school programs which would look good on her college applications. When Jai explains to her teacher that she needs those after-school hours to work at Burger King to help provide for her family, her teacher tells Jai that she knows of a job Jai can do where she’ll earn three times as much and offers to take her there for an interview one day after school. Jai requests an afternoon off from work to go to the interview. At the interview, she is drugged, and afterwards a pimp watches as she is raped. When it’s over, the pimp tells Jai she got the job as one of his “favorites” and pays her three times as much as one shift at Burger King. If she comes back tomorrow, he’ll pay her even more. Jai goes to work for the pimp for a couple hours in the evening each day after attending her after-school programs. She hopes to save enough money to be able to work fewer shifts for him but continue to support her mom and sisters while she attends college in downtown Little Rock. When she arrives to work one day, she finds out she’s been sold to another pimp who operates out of another city. He takes her that same day, and she hasn’t seen or been in contact with her mother or sisters since.
Are you sick to your stomach? It never fails–each time I hear a testimony from a man or woman who has somehow managed to escape the bonds of slavery I become physically unwell. I think that’s a normal response. Don’t you? It is sickening after all…
These three young people I’ve introduced to you represent only one sector of human trafficking–sex. But there are child slaves harvesting cocoa pods in West Africa, adult men picking cotton in India, and women working off the debts of their grandfathers by sewing clothes in factories in Malaysia.
I grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, and as a middle schooler my parents sensitively and assertively warned me of the model pick-up line being used at our mall to lure young girls into the shadows of the sex trade. Unfortunately, I’ve met women like Sarah who weren’t afforded the warning I was. They were just your regular girl next door who one day found themselves trapped.
Atlanta is well-known for being a human trafficking hub, and I’ve driven up and down the street most notorious for it more times than I can count. A college friend’s next door neighbor’s house, just north of the city, was busted as a brothel a few years ago. I’ve participated in the days to raise awareness for human trafficking, I’ve given money, I wear a red X on my purse, I buy fair trade goods, I’ve pushed myself about as close to the cause as I can while remaining emotionally functional. Human trafficking has never been an “across the ocean” issue to me. It’s always been a “next door” issue.
But a quick perusing of my home will show that although no one in my house is a slave, the effects of slavery are still present here in our food, clothes, and home goods. Furthermore, I’m not only realizing that the same warnings and education my parents had to do with me to keep me safe from this heinousness, I’m going to have to do with my own daughter, but also that the reality of slavery’s proximity has only grown closer in the last twenty years.
Human trafficking is dark, it’s heavy, and it’s scary. There are more slaves on the planet today than there have been in the history of mankind. Once you can fight through the nausea that reality evokes, you’ll find that there is some good news. There are a lot of us out there who are bent on seeing an end to it in this lifetime. We’re bent on bringing that number down from over 27 million to 0.
It seems like an incredibly overwhelming task. Eradicating slavery? 27 million people? A lot of people want to know: Where do we even start?
Partner up. There are organizations and ministries all across the globe striving each day to put an end to slavery, and they’d love your help in any way, shape, or form.
Will you extend your hand and partner up?
Being an Atlanta girl, the End It Movement holds a very special place in my heart. Check out their website for more information on human trafficking and how you can help bring an end to it.
I’d love for our CAGD readers/contributors to help lead the search for more resources on getting involved with ending human trafficking. Please comment below with the link to an organization you’re involved with whose purpose is to either raise awareness or rescue and rehabilitate the victims of slavery here and abroad.
We can’t keep viewing slavery as a “next door” issue. Changing that mindset is the first step in helping bring an end to it. Together we can make slavery a thing of the past. Together we can end it for good.
