Dread rose like lava I needed to outrun. It swallowed my joy.
I studied every form of “spiritual warfare” imaginable. I rebuked this and I bound that. I claimed Mariana back from the enemy. I blamed and I exclaimed, “What happened? Why isn’t any of this working? Why aren’t you doing something, God?”
I go around and snatch these girls from evil. It’s your job to keep them safe. My heart is broken. I can’t take it.” I turned to the wall and I cried until I had no more tears.
When I finally raised my head, a card pasted on a mirror caught my eye.
“A broken…heart I will not ignore.”
Before, this page had served as a reminder of something the girls needed to recover from the awful things the traffickers had done to them. Now, I needed this message as much as the girls. I’d seen so much pain and so many poor choices in the past years. They’d slit at my soul until their memories seeped from a dark space inside. “God, my heart! It’s broken! I can’t take it anymore.”
The phone rang. I looked at the clock. It was 1: A.M.
Twelve years ago, I had picked up the phone about this time of night and it was the police asking me to come bring clothes to the hospital for three prostitutes who had Syphilis. The prostitutes turned out to be young girls. That was the call that led to my opening the safe house. Now I couldn’t stop crying. Should I even pick up the phone? What bad news might be at the other end of the line? It might be a request to pick up another girl. I just can’t right now.
I finally answered the phone. At first, no one said anything. Then a sob came through the line. “Iana, it’s me, Mariana. Will you come and pick me up? ”
“Where are you? What happened?”
The answers didn’t matter near as much as the fact that she was OK. She wasn’t dead and the traffickers hadn’t taken her.
This experience taught me a bit about prayer. While my voice is important and I use it to fight against injustice, when it comes to matters of the heart and spirit, my voice doesn’t have the power to change much. I can claim, I can bind, and I can command. I can do 12 steps of prayer or 7 steps of prayer, but none of this is what moves the heart of God. He shows compassion to me when my heart is broke by the things that break his heart. My father in heaven cares when I hurt.
No matter what noise I make to fight human trafficking I’m really just a little girl with a broken heart. But, if I’m still and I’m quiet long enough, like Mariana, I find myself tingling with anticipation of what can be. In this way, I move forward to fight the good fight…
2 comments:
If you are a human...you cannot turn your back on this woman and her cause.
We as a country--the world as individual countries--hide our heads in sports and contrived "reality" TV and distractions...and children are raped, children die, while we play our inane games.
I was introduced to this today.
By tonight every person I know who will listen will know about this too.
Wake up.
Thank you! That means the blog is not in vain. That means there is still hope, there are still good people out there who never heard about my girls. That means I will keep telling their story. Thank you for helping,
Iana
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