This is how God works with me.
I seek his face, my own expressionless, staring out the window
Smeared mascara, tears wiped away with a swipe of my wrist while doing dishes.
Heart sad, my spirit so discouraged.
My lack is in my face.
I go upstairs and gather my tools to enter into His presence.
Coffee, journal, blanket, fan, pen, books, phone…
A habit that carries me into the only thing that brings hope.
I am honored to have Katie Polley, writing for Love Justice International, as a guest here today. Please read about the very important work they do and share it if you feel led to help spread the word about this amazing nonprofit. The world needs to know about it!
–Amy
by Katie Polley, writing for Love Justice International
In 2016, I started helping a nonprofit with their social media and website content for a couple hours a week. I worked with many clients at the time and had little reason to suspect that getting to know this nonprofit would drastically impact the way I desire to live my life.
Love Justice International is compelled by God’s love to fight the world’s greatest injustices—one of which is human trafficking—an issue I had heard a lot about but hadn’t really ever engaged deeply with. It felt far away from my little world. The numbers were so big (in 2016, the Global Slavery Index estimated that 40.3 million people live in slavery), and felt impersonal. And ultimately, I was ignorant.
This all changed as I began to learn more about the people and work behind Love Justice. As I started receiving story after story from the field, I quickly realized they didn’t just see and talk about the issue of human trafficking, but quite literally they entered into the very trenches of it to stop it. God woke me up.
You see, Love Justice is unique from most anti-trafficking agencies in that rather than working on the preventative or the reactive side of human trafficking, they actually intervene at the exact moment when trafficking is occurring, and they intercept the potential victim before she is trafficked.
So I began reading account after account of young women, from various countries, who were being taken across borders, bus stations, or airports, but instead were intersected by Love Justice’s trained monitors. Young women like Sanjula who was most likely headed into a life of some form of slavery, marked by unimaginable darkness and despair. But instead, because there were justice-fighters stationed, waiting, and seeking out girls just like her, she was literally intercepted and turned around.
Instead of traveling further with her trafficker, Sanjula was educated on the dangers of trafficking and safe foreign employment. She was cared for, counseled and comforted, and then sent to safety.
These stories of real people like Sanjula¸were oftentimes girls my age. They were children of God—with names, families, beautiful facial features, unique hopes, and dreams. Their stories deeply affected how I thought about human trafficking, justice, and my role in it as a fellow child of God. I was no longer ignorant, and apathy was no longer an option. I couldn’t deny how these stories of faithful people pursuing the vulnerable girl who was being deceived into a life of slavery and darkness, perfectly reflected God’s pursuit of me.
It’s the gospel—the story I’ve been graced to hear throughout my whole life. The God of the universe passionately wanted to save me from the slavery of the sin I was born with. He wanted freedom and a relationship with me so much that He didn’t stay in the heavenly places and leave me to my helpless estate, but instead, He literally moved heaven and earth to come up with a plan, a strategy, the only way to save me in His son, Jesus Christ.
He pursued me! He entered into the mess, the danger, the pain, and came down to earth, taking the punishment I deserved and made a new way for me. He turned my path around and offered freedom, light, and hope.
This is the reflection I saw in every Love Justice interception story I read from across the globe. In the same way, God pursued justice for me and came to save me, Love Justice was literally placing people right where the injustice of trafficking was happening, so they could intercept victims’ paths towards slavery and instead offer them freedom. What an amazing, beautiful picture of how God pursues us!
And even more than that, He has made each of us in His own image. So the same heart of His that craves justice is in us. He built in our hearts a desire for justice, a hunger for wrongs to be righted, a quest for things to be dealt with. When we truly know God and His love, and we truly know the reality of injustices like human trafficking, our hearts cannot help but be compelled to be a part of stopping it.
The joy and meaning I’ve found in being able to work alongside and play a small role in what Love Justice is doing have been immeasurable. Simply put, God is using this ministry to bring more of His Kingdom here on earth—to destroy injustice and usher in freedom for the oppressed. To date, they’ve intercepted over 16,000 lives to prevent them from being trafficked. And each one of those interceptions results in powerful intelligence that allows them to assist local police with criminal investigations and arrests of the perpetrators.
When you see God moving like this, the same God who saved you from spiritual darkness, it’s hard to not jump at the chance to be a part of it. So today, at the very end of Human Trafficking Prevention Month, I want to invite you to be a part of Love Justice with me! Allow your life to be impacted by the beauty of leaning into God’s heart for justice with action. Go to LoveJustice.ngo to learn more about how you can get involved with your time, treasure, and talents.
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Driving through Monterey, sunroof open, coastal air in our hair.
I’m nestled into the passenger seat of my Karen’s car.
It is one of my most favorite places in the world to be.
She brings a soft blanket and pillow for my head, just in case I am tired after my early morning flight.
She brings nourishment in a cooler, just in case I am hungry.
“What have I done to deserve love like this?”
{Push Play On Song, Maybe Listen While Reading?}
She is my beauty from ashes friend, and I cannot help but think how tangible that is, all throughout this 4th trip of mine to California.
All 4 trips have been a gift, plane tickets and more paid for.
Self-care is not selfish. It is quite healthy to know yourself and know what feels caring and rejuvenating to YOU, so that you can love others well.
This is how I keep self-care from being selfish:
My purpose is to serve and love others well and glorify the God I Iove in the way I live. I need to be purposeful in doing things for myself that gives me the energy to do this.
One of the best things that happened to me this summer is the gift of a wicker hanging swing chair. We keep it in our backyard and it has quickly become one of my favorite spots, to sit slow and spend some quiet time in prayer.
I have to admit, I find myself a bit surprised that our backyard has now become one of my favorite spots, because for a very long time it was one of my least favorite areas of our home, that is, until I had an attitude change.
Oh, how I have come to love the early morning and the sights, sounds and routine it brings. Sideways sun shining through trees creating haze.
I marvel at sunrays filtered through limbs extending faded light lines all the way to the ground.
It stops me mid-jog. It is amazing to see something that is usually invisible and only felt, not seen. I take a few pictures, trying to capture the fleeting visible…I zero in.
I am more in tune in the morning, at least once I am verticle for a few.
7 years.
Thank you, Lord, for 7 years.
I feel overwhelmed when I think of all the life lived in 7 years.
So much growth. Many growing pains.
You are faithful through it all, by my side, guiding, whispering, present.
You know my thoughts… how I find it confusing to know how to feel about 7 years.
So many feelings. I’ve seen my marriage, friendships, and precious girls grow.
An unspeakable gift!
I know I’ve gained wisdom, my time with you has not returned void. {Isaiah 55:11}
Yet…I feel less resilient than in my younger years.
Life lived can take its toll.
I’ve seen much beauty and I’ve seen much pain. I see how often it comes in a pair and does a horrific beautiful dance.
The ashes Lord, the beautiful ashes. I hold tight to your promise of trade. {Isaiah 61:3}
Maybe my perceived lack of resilience is evidence and subconscious acknowledgment of my weakness and need for you? For when I am weak, I am strong. {2 Corinthians 12:9-11}
Stories swirl when thinking of 7 years. Some stories sting–the beautiful painful.
Luisa.
Paul.
You know their names, and there are more.
Pieces of my heart, some here, some taken, when I think of them a physical ache comes. Holes in my heart.
These holes really are a longing for you, {Psalm 63:1} for answers, for wholeness– for Heaven. {2 Corinthians 5:2}
We long for Heaven, yet, we long to live.
We want years. A God-given desire.
We want Life. {Psalm 84:2}
That is why you gave yours. {John 3:16}
7 years is so close to 10.
I’ve never thought beyond the 10…not really.
When told “a 50/50 chance of being alive in 10 years” the apprehension comes and seems to grow when I think of how quickly that number is coming.
I can’t make much sense of it, this curious vague apprehension.
Is it the knowledge that days are numbered?
If so, this is a good thing, for all of ours are. {Job 14:5}
Life is but a breath. A vapor. {James 4:14}
Is it that I let quickly pass the glorious thoughts of weddings and grandchildren and wrinkles and gray hair?
Oh the magnificent thought of growing old with my Love and Lovelies! I hold it loosely.
My Teagan just turned 18, a legal adult in some states. She blows out candles and I am in awe that I get to see the day, a prayer of mine answered. I watch her fall in what could be love and I recognize weddings are not too far away. Could I really have the privilege?
I am cautious in my longings, keeping them in check all these 7 years.
I’ve practiced a “come what may” lifestyle, hands open. A learned trust.
So why the apprehension and hesitation if I’m so schooled in trust?
I know You are good {Psalm 136:1}
I know you are trustworthy. {Psalm 33:4}
I also have known and seen suffering and pain, how at any moment the other shoe can drop and along with it hopes and dreams. My human-ness comes and I feel frustrated that celebration can so easily come with a vague “what-if?”
I know you know. You are acquainted with grief and familiar with suffering. {Isaiah 53:3}
You whisper reminders of your apprehension of the cross, your moments spent in that garden. {Matthew 26:39} I focus my wandering thoughts. I find all the answers I need. It is enough, more than enough.
Your arms opened wide spread on a tree carved for me. You’ve got it all and hold it all, the whole of the world right in your hand.
I look closer and find myself. My life. My story. My moments.
Closer still and I see my hairs numbered {Luke 12:7} and your thoughts of me so vast it outweighs the all of the grains of sand! {Psalm 139:17,18} You see me. Fully known, fully loved.
It frees the apprehension. I breathe easy and feel a lightness, my thoughts once again free to dance, and you along with them, dancing over me, {Zephaniah 3:17} all the while holding me right there in your palm.
My joy slows and settles. I lay my head on the shoulder of Father God – just you and me, we dance.
I exhale release the past 7 years, all of it.
The joy. The pain.
I release the 10-year mark.
I release the years of life beyond, Lord-willing.
Help me to keep releasing the unknown whole. {Proverbs 3:5-6}
Remind me to let go because I am held, then help me to keep dancing, a dance only with and for You.
Thank you, Lord, for 7 years.
WE DANCE – Staffany Gretzinger
“You steady me, slow and sweet, we sway–take the lead and I will follow”
“Finally ready now, to close my eyes and just believe that you won’t lead me where you don’t go”
“We dance, just you and me.”
“It’s nice to know, I’m not alone, I’ve found my home here in your arms.”