These are my children.
Alec is two; Sebastian is one. They are happy, loved, and cared for. As every child should be.
But so many children aren’t.
Today is World Day Against Human Trafficking. I’ve been reading stories all month. A snippet here, an article there. Survivors’ stories. Rescuers’ tales. Things to keep you up at night. Things to make you sick. Things you want to forget, but cannot.
Should not.
Because if we don’t realize what is happening, how will we stop it?
There are children being abused every day. Horrifically. Some as small as my sweet boys. I can’t imagine it, and I can’t not imagine it.
If even half the stories are true, this world is an awful, awful place.
And though my everyday life is one that I love living, when I think of the children, I can’t help but cry, Lord Jesus, come soon.
I can’t stop thinking of the children.
The sheer magnitude of the sex trafficking network seems indomitable. What can we really do in the face of it?
There is always something.
Pray. Give money. Raise awareness. Anything but forget.
God uses His people, even against such a longstanding evil. The things that break our hearts break His more, I think especially when it comes to the children.
And so I ask Him to hold them in their torment and to rescue them from it. I ask Him to give direction, wisdom, safety, and courage to those who are working to rescue them. And I ask Him to bring to justice and repentance those who are abusing them.
“O Lord, Thou art my God; I will exalt Thee, I will praise Thy name; for Thou hast done wonderful things . . . Thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall . . . The Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of His people shall He take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it. And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.” [Isaiah 25:1,4,8-9]
