Modern Day Slavery

Sex Trafficking is our modern day slavery. 

Did you know that 1.2 million children are trafficked every year; this is in addition to the millions already held captive by trafficking. That the average captive is forced to have sex up to 40 times a day? That the average age is 14 years old? Did you also know that by 2010 Sex Trafficking will be the number crime worldwide? (statistics taken from http://www.sheispriceless.com/learn-about-sex-trafficking/) And if you think it just happens in other countries.....you are wrong. If you think Americans don't get pulled into it you are also wrong. 

Last night I heard a story of two cousins who were on their way to Wendy's to get a frosty when they were taken. They were 14 and 15 years old. Their captors made one act/preform while they used the other one as leverage to make sure the performer was doing as was told. They worked the truck stops. They were some of the lucky ones who were rescued out of it. You can read the full story at www.iEmpathize.org

But think about this.....these are real people who are being taken into this lifestyle and used. Where were you at 14 years old? What would you feel if you made to do sexual acts for men who paid it....night after night, man after man? What if your daughter was taken? Your niece? Or even your son or nephew because it's not just girls who are being targeted. How would you feel? What would you do? What do you think these children are feeling? What hope would a 13 year old girl have as she lies in bed with strange men night after night? And even man after man every night?

It makes me sick. It makes me angry. It makes me yell at God. My heart hurts for these young hearts. What would I have been like if I had been caught up in that? If I was trafficked? Where would my faith have been at? Would I ever be able to believe there is a God who let such horrible things happen to me?

This is real. This really happens. It's so easy to turn your head and pretend it's not. But it is. And I want to help. I want to make a difference. I want to do something.

People. Help me out. In what ways can I get involved?! I know financially and supporting all the organizations out there who are doing awesome things but is that it?

Enjoy the Journey

My aunt called me this morning and said how I was on her mind (we had talked for a while yesterday) and she said "dont forget to enjoy the journey". I started crying.

Sept of 2007 for one of my classes at Moody we had to do a day of silence and I God spoke to me very profoundly that day. I wont go into the long story or type up the journal entry of that day but in a very real way God said to me that life isn't about finding the perfect spot to be, the perfect job, the perfect guy or have the perfect minstry. That life is about enjoying the journey, enjoying the journey of life with God. Taking time to smell the roses and see what's he wants to tell me every day. It's not about reaching perfection or reaching the absolute "perfect will of God".........life is about the journey that takes us there.

My aunt reminded me of that this morning. Enjoy the journey. Yes. This week has sucked. Yes. I cried myself to sleep last night. But can I enjoy that journey? Can I find the ways that God is whispering to me in the hard moments? Life is going to be hard. And there will be many more nights of crynig myself to sleep. But there will also be many more moments of Jesus sweetly reminding me what life is about. Like through my aunt this morning.

So, today......I'm just going along for the ride of whatever today is and enjoy the journey.

Understanding?

Do you have those moments when you feel like life is starting to make sense? That maybe, just maybe you are beginning to understand the recent events. That it's starting to make sense. There is hope for the future and excitement. Something I dream of is within arms reach.

In the matter of one phone call all that was dashed.

I don't care that I didn't get the job. I'm okay with it. I don't want to be somewhere that wasn't where I was suppose to be. This just means that God has something else for me.....right?

But what is hard is the rejection. Is the feeling that for some reason I wasnt enough to do a job that I would have poured my heart and soul into.

What is also hard is once again I'm back to not understanding or even have any idea. I hate it. ha. I wish I understood the past two years of my life.

Don't get me wrong I am thankful for many things in my life! I have so much to be thankful for and my life isn't terrible at all. I just wish I understood what God was doing in it and where He was taking me.

Life is a journey. I just don't have the answers to where it's going or why it's where it is now.

And. I. Hate. That.

Dancing in the Rain.....

Life is full of storms. It seems you aren't much out of one until another one hits. So, what are we to do? Decided to be miserable until it's over? Well, that sounds like a great way to live life.

I think over the past month I've decided I'm fed up. Fed up with having bouts of being depressed about life or what my current storm is. I'm tired of just existing and waiting for the storm to pass. I don't want to just get through life anymore. That was last year. All last year I just needed to get through and each day I just focused on making it through the end of that day.

But is that living life to the full? Is tht taking advantage of the life God has given me? With the good and the bad? I want to dance in the rain. I want to twirl with the raindrops falling on my face and still have the overwhelming knowledge that I serve a creator who knows my heart and knows my future. I want to have that hope that the rain won't always fall but I want to learn to be content as it does.

I want more out of life than I am experiencing now.

Missing a past love.....

Sigh. I don't want that to be true. There is a guy from my past that seems to be haunting me lately. In my thoughts. In my dreams. And then I ran into him the other day. Seriously? That didn't help.

I miss him. I've never met anyone else who I have connected with like him on that level. Who shared a similar heart and desire to just love people. I was so excited about a future with him. And even the random guys I have little crushes on here and there now.....don't hold a candle to him.

I would go out with him again in a heartbeat. But there is no use of holding out hope for that as it's a waste of energy. And if not him....God's got someone even better for me that I'll have an even stronger connection with. Wow....that thought blows my mind.

Suicide.

Warning, I'm not responsible for the raw emotions or ramblings that may follow.

I got a text last night that envoked a million emotions from me by the time the text conversation was over. I met him but I didn't know him. Honestly, I don't even remember meeting him. But I was standing at my mirror, putting on my make up, getting ready to go to work when the text came that said "He shot himself". I drew a breath in and slowly sank into a sitting position on my bed just staring at those words. I flashbacked a little bit to sitting in my room at Moody getting a phone call along similar lines. I proceed to talk with my friend a little bit and asking him how he was and the range of emotions that ran threw me was overwhelming. And I didn't really even know him. How much more must be the emotions that my friend is feeling and all that knew him.

Shock. Anger. Sorrow. Regret. Questions. Guilt. Inability to undersatand.

There is just something about someone taking their own life that breaks my heart completely. I dont understand how someone can do that. It is THE most selfish thing a person could do. It makes me so incredibly angry! Those you end up leaving behind are in shambles and possibly screwed up for life. This man got married in July and now his wife is left to pick up the pieces. My heart hurts so much thinking about her and knowing that I had a hard time getting up in the mornings after break ups let alone after my husband died by his own hand.

But then on the flip side of things I think about the person who was so completely lost and helpless that his only avenue of escape is to take his own life. What brings a person to that level? Granted I have experience some serious deep depression in my life. And on one or two occasions the thoughts of ending it all seemed extremely appealing but yet I knew it would never go beyond the thoughts of it. What must be going on in someone's life that makes them so feel incredibly alone that suicide seems like their only option?

And then I can't help but wonder what could have been done to help this man? To help those who feel that level of hopelessness? What can we do? What can I do? I want to make a difference. I want to help bring hope to those who have none. Maybe it's a matter of just loving those who are hurting. Maybe it's just a matter of noticing those who sometimes seem to slip by unnoticed. Maybe it's about loving everyone no matter what. Maybe it's just about the little things that you do because you never know what one little thing you do could actually save someone's life.

Heart Treasures

"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:21

This is one of those verses that I grew up hearing all the time but I'm not sure I've ever really stopped to ponder it in application to my life. Where is my treasure? What are the things that I desire more than anything else? What are the things that I hold dear to my heart? What are the things that consume me?

I want to have heart to really matter which means my treasures need to really matter. What are you treasures? Where does your heart live?

Joy will come in the morning

This morning as I was getting ready for my day I happened to look up and see the painting on my wall....

"Joy will come in the morning"

Oh, that phrase.... a year ago I clung to it. It was the hope I held on to and throughout the painful times last year I kept reminding myself of it. That this season would end, that joy would come again, that I would feel like my normal optimistic self, that I wouldn't just be surviving life and that I wouldn't just be existing.

"Joy will come in the morning" 

Guess what? It's finally morning! That is what I realized this morning. I'm not sure when exactly morning came but it has. I'm not just existing, I'm not just trying to get through each day but I'm enjoying life again. And it's not that I haven't at all this past year because I have! But it's a different feeling this time and the joy is there without a guy playing a part into it. (haha... funny guys seem to have brought some of the biggest joys and the biggest sorrows into my life)

I knew this year was going to be a significant year and I'm already starting to see actual signs of it. I want more out of life. I want to know God more and deeper. I want my relationship with Him to be like it was when I was in Northern Ireland. I felt like I heard Him so much more clearly then. I want that back. I want to prayer expectantly and for big picture things. I want to be used in huge ways. I want not put God in a box.  I want to see Him move in my life. I want to grown and change and become more loving, more forgiving, more humble, more selfless, more like Christ.

I'm excited for this year and that amazes. God is faithful and I didn't think I would ever be back to this place. Thank you Jesus! That I love my life again and excited about the unknown and hopeful.

Hope. There is that word again. Hope.

"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer" - Romans 12:12

This is my verse for this year. I will be joyful in the hope that I have. I will be patient in any affliction that is thrown my way. And I will remain faithful in prayer......at all times

To be or not to be.....profound

Why do I feel like I can't write anything in here unless it's something profound and life changing? Dumb, right? There seems to be this pressure in blogging these days to be either very thought provoking, extremely witty and entertaining or a self help type of thing. But why do I have to conform to that? Why do I have to feel the pressures of what I can and cannot write? Forget that.

This is my blog, my thoughts, my feelings. It may sometimes be profound or witty or resourceful but let's be honest; more than likely it will be the raw inner thoughts of a girl who's just trying to juggle and figure out life.

But what this blog has that no other blog has is me. That's what makes this one different and unique. Me.

Thoughts on 2010

As I look back and think about this past year there is a single phrase that you can define the way I lived the year.

......one day at a time.....

These were the words that became my profound statement of the year. I would be reminded of it in the heartache moments when I thought the tears wouldn't stop to the moments where I thought my smile couldn't get any bigger to the moments where loneliness invaded every core of my being to the moments, that were few and far between, where contentment filled my soul. I'm not good at living in the moment. I'm a dreamer and I enjoy letting my mind wander to the future and the "what ifs". But what happens when life seems to throw you curve balls? Several at a time or right after each other? What happens when a dreamer can no longer grasp see a future? What happens when the future just seems black and empty? The dreamer learns to live in the moment. The dreamer learns to dream one day at a time while she is in that day. That is what this girl has learned this year. That for this season in my life God wants me to live in the moment and I know because of that I survived even the darkest moments this past year......

This is something else I've learned this year. That even in the darkest moments, in the times that I'm not sure I'll make it, when I'm overwhelmed with feelings of desperation, there is still light and God is still good. In the most painful events of 2010 I can still pull out the good, pull out the light and see the ways it shined. I grew a lot this year, I learned how to pull out the light in the darkness. I learned the importance of being able to able to do that when nothing makes sense of the situation you are in. I had the opportunity to meet a guy this year and be pursued in a way I never have before. I felt desired and wanted and selflessly loved. But then he decided to end it with reasons that didn't make sense to me or anyone else around me but I had to let him go. I choose to hold on to the light in that situation. I'm thankful that I got to experience being loved in that way because I never had before. I learned what it meant to be treated like a princess and this man showed me the bar that other guys should meet in their treatment of me compared to way some had treated me in the past. God was faithful to show me that and protect my heart from allowing other men to treat me like crap. Light in the darkness.

There are a lot of things I'm thankful for this past year. The job that I have, the friends I have made, the church I have fallen in love with, the youth that I now work with, and the journey with God that I have gone on. As I ended 2010 I am filled with overwhelming hope and anticipation for the future. Do you have have those moments when you feel like something big is gonna happen? I feel that. I feel like 2011 is going to be a huge year for me and I'm not sure what that means or what that looks like. But I hope. That's my word for the year hope. I knew I wanted to choose a word for the year and in numerous ways "hope" has been spoken to me over the past couple of weeks. So, I hope. I hope for an incredible year that is filled with adventures, growth and joy. I hope that God reveals a bit more of his plan for my life. I hope that I experience His faithfulness in ways I never have, I hope that I learn to see how He pursues my heart and tells me He loves me on a daily basis. I hope for relationships to grow and deepen and that I experience the community we were created for.

But what I really want out of this year to help others experience and see the hope that I know. I want to serve and love selflessly because it is in those moments that I feel most alive. I just want to love people and walk their journeys with them. I want to be able to help show them that there is always hope no matter how bad a situation seems.

And with that goodbye 2010. I won't really miss you but will remember the things you taught me.

And hello 2011. I've been waiting for you and welcome you with anticipation full of hope.

"We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, sure and strong..." Hebrews 6:19

Welcome to 2011

2010 is over. Praise the Lord. More thoughts on that later.

This is my new and permanent blog. Watch this space for the journey of 2011 filled with the thoughts, the fears, the tears and the anticipation and hope for the days ahead.

Hope. It's my word for the year. What that looks like and means has yet to be discovered.

Stay tuned.