our children
From my bedroom, where I stand folding clothes, pressing my mama hands flat against warm shirts, smoothing out the lines, I can hear Zoe laughing. That laugh of hers, it’s like the wings of a thousand birds flying free. Her door is closed, but I know that when I tap my fingers against it; when I open that door to leave a stack of clean things on her desk, I’ll find her sitting cross-legged on her bed. She’ll smile at me, looking up from the laptop flipped open in front of her. She’ll have those earbuds of hers, with their long white cords, hanging from her ears. “Thanks, Mom,” she’ll say, a little too loudly because of the sound of music or friend or media that’s playing in her ears. Her cheeks will be warm when I lean over to give her a kiss. I know this, and my heart aches for mamas who have lost their daughters.
In my email inbox this afternoon I found an article by Ann Voskamp that ripped into my heart, tearing into the tender places where I keep my kids. She’s one of my favorite authors, and I urge you to click on over, but I warn you: it’ll hurt. Because today…today in this world, evil has forced young women and young men like our daughters and sons into slavery. Rough hands have herded them into shipping containers, where maybe they suffocate and die or maybe they live to be broken–beaten out of believing they’re worthwhile–and abused, their bodies sold. I asked God to break my heart for what breaks His, and I read this today and my heart is broken. I stared at the screen and gulped down tears, knowing it’s God’s own salty grief I taste.
The information isn’t new to me, maybe it’s not new for you either. I’ve seen movies and Netflix shows with multiple episodes about this; I’ve probably even read about this somewhere before, but today it slices right through me, because as I was reading my own daughter bounded down the stairs. She paused in the doorway, twisting a length of the golden hair that fell free about her shoulders in waves, her face flushed from exercise. She stopped a moment just to see me, just to tell me she loves me. And right then, I felt the pain of too many–oh, so many–mamas and their lost and broken children. Suddenly, I’m convinced that the reason the raw, ugly, heart-shattering truth about human trafficking lately floods our culture is that God means to shake us awake past our knowing right into the doing compelled by love.
I stop folding now and stand still, just listening to Zoe laugh. Can you hear it too now? That wide open, free sound? I hear, and I want to fight for the laughter of stolen children, for the freedom of modern day slaves screaming somewhere and grasping for hope. I pick up my phone; I’d tossed it against the pillows when I started my work. I forward the article to Kevin, knowing ours is the same heart and that the same Spirit speaks to us both. This broke my heart today, I type, though when he reads, the comment will be unnecessary. I send it knowing that tonight, when in the last of the day my husband prays over me, his voice will crumble when he speaks of these things. Prayer isn’t merely a leaving, as though somehow it absolves us of responsibility, but a submission, a plea that begs,
“What can I do?“
Today is Human Trafficking Awareness Day, and it’s time we begin to fight for all the world’s daughters and sons. We begin with prayer, with listening closely, perhaps with reconsidering our budgets. We raise our children to love, not to hate. We support organizations already on the front lines, and we let God wake us up to help.
