Ever had the fun of looking for you car keys and they were in your ‘other’ hand? How about the classic – looking for your glasses – and you’re wearing them? Some of us have developed the coping skill at laughing at ourselves in those situations; provided we didn’t go into “ice cube” mode and have an anger meltdown prior to finding the lost item. As we get older, it’s too easy to let our thoughts stray to just that…we’re getting old…we’re losing our marbles. Well, maybe we are and maybe we aren’t; but it just seems that it is ridiculously easy to let a seemingly small matter grow out of proportion.
Yet the flip-side of this, is that…just maybe…there is something to it, but we’re so busy with the rest of life that we just blow it off. You can slap the old “been there, done that, got the hat and t-shirt” cliche on it and just go merrily down our laser focused mindless path.
I have to admit, I am in definite babble mode today; playing mental “whack-a-mole: the rabbit hole edition”, but I’m reeling from my reaction to the sermon I just saw on-line (Southeastern Church – Kyle Idleman). His emphasis today was how Jesus got thousands of gentiles to praise the God of Israel (psst – gentiles hated Jews & vice versa), just by loving the gentiles on a one-to-one basis; mostly by healing their ills. No sermon or scripture; just loving them.
As pastor Idleman wrapped up his sermon, he shared something that had happened at a satellite campus regarding “human trafficking.” What was shared from that campus, was an email exchange between a woman (age was’t specified) and someone at the church who is part of their ministry to help those women cope, hopefully escape their bondage, and most assuredly come to know that Jesus loves them.
Begrudgingly I have to admit that as the email exchange started, I thought it was kind of lame. The church writer was offering Christian platitudes, but how was this supposed to help the woman? Yet in her responses – she was getting it – and wanted to know more. Her biggest fear was not knowing where she’d be next. Guess that’s where the term “trafficking” comes in since the women (and I guess men too) are routinely moved from site to site and she was concerned that she’d be sent to Atlanta next (for the super bowl).
That’s when it hit me. That’s when I noticed that what has been under my nose for so long; for what I considered a “so what” kind of thing; HIT ME. And it hurt because it opened up the memory box of all what I always referred to as hookers or whores were really women. Women that undoubtedly did not follow the ship that I was on (back in navy days) from port to port. They were women that were forced to. Women that were forced to wear seductive clothing, pretend to be who they hated, pretend to enjoy what they do – the so-called “world’s oldest profession.”
I cried. Deep sobbing tears. Remorse. Guilt. Shame. And that was before Mr. Idleman summed up the story that the woman tried to get away from Atlanta and lost her life in the process.
babychristian55 