by donyadunlap | Jul 4, 2012 | Making a Difference, Modern Day Slavery
Today is the birthday of America. A great country that I am proud to be a citizen of during my existence on this planet. Today we celebrate freedom, but the cost of this freedom weighs heavy on my chest in a way that it never has before.
Freedom for the American and for the Christian was purchased through blood. Blood of the innocent. Blood shed willingly for those who were willing to die so that others may live in comfort and security. And yet, the tyrant of evil still reigns in this great country of ours and even in our churches, yet we turn a blind eye to its destruction and go back to our cookouts and sparklers.
I was once this way. I didn’t want to know about the sin and death around me. I felt helpless to stop it and incapable of making a difference so I didn’t watch the news, I ignored the headlines, I thought of the terrible wickedness portrayed through stories on tv, film and books as fairy tales. Oh, I’m sure those things do happen in the world somewhere, but it isn’t my concern.
But one day God made it my concern.
God opened my eyes to the terrible wickedness of human trafficking. He shocked me out of my complacency. How? By revealing to me that not only was this evil real, but that it happens in my communities, my neighborhoods, to people that I encounter every day and to children as young as my nieces and nephews, and even younger still.
No longer was rape part of a story line in a novel that finished with a nice story of redemption and rescue at the end so that I could sleep well at night. No. It was real. And the victims were the faces of those I loved. Young women who should be loved, protected and sheltered from such evil were being sold for drug money by those who should have been willing to die for them. No longer could I turn my eyes from the truth.
At that moment there was no going back.
Stories are told of Christians gathering during the World Wars as the trains of prisoners traveled past their little churches, crying out for someone to help them. Someone to care. Did they rise up? Did they rescue those poor souls on the way to their deaths? Did they pray for courage to fight back? No. They just sang louder.
Today I look around at my lovely home, my family and friends who are safe and happy and my many blessings and I am truly grateful. But no longer can I merely enjoy my comfortable life and sing until the screaming stops. Maybe I can’t single-handedly stop this moving train of abuse, kidnapping, forced-labor, rape and pornography by myself, but I can do something.
I can pray. I can get involved in petitions and law changing efforts that will help bring healing to the abused and justice to the perpetrators. I can learn how to reach out and help those who are trying to put their lives back together. I can use my words to raise awareness to those who haven’t yet chosen to look into the face of the evil and see the truth of the world around them. I can research ways to buy slave-free goods and write letters to companies to encourage them to use fair labor. I can sacrifice some of my comfortable life to donate to organizations that are actively fighting against the evil and helping to restore victims to wholesome lives once again.
On several occasions I have shared similar thoughts with other Christians and on more than one occasion have gotten a response back along the lines of “I can’t think about those kinds of things. It’s too much. I have to push those thoughts from my mind or I’ll never sleep at night.” I wonder what Jesus would say to that? Do you think He came to die for us and for every soul trapped in their personal hells on this earth so that Christians can live in luxury and security and turn a blind eye to the world around them? NO!
Moments before being arrested Jesus prayed for us. He prayed that we would bring the Father glory as we were sent into the world to fight against the evil. He didn’t expect it to be easy. He told His disciples that they would suffer like He was about to suffer. I ask you—are you willing to rise up out of your comfort zone and bring the glory of Christ into this world of darkness? Are you willing to accept the truth of the evil that surrounds us and determine to do something about it?
I beg of you to take off your blinders this Independence Day and rise up for FREEDOM. Freedom for the helpless. Freedom for the needy. Fight for the freedom of those that Christ died to set free. Let us not just enjoy the freedom that has been given to us by others. Let us blaze a trail for freedom for those still bound in the chains of sin and death all around us.
Let us once again make America the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave!
*Photo Credit: Robert Linder
by donyadunlap | Jun 22, 2012 | Making a Difference, Modern Day Slavery, The Spiritual Life
I am a closet super hero. And by that I don’t mean that I have a cape, a belt full of super-secret weapons, and a bat cave. Bats are cute and all, but I’m not all that excited about the idea of shacking up with them. Nor am I a fan of tights.
Photo Credit: GregW (creative commons – http://www.flickr.com/people/gregw)
What I mean is that by day I am a church secretary and by night I work towards and dream about being the kind of person that helps people change their lives and connect with God. My secret identity involves writing best-selling books, speaking at women’s conferences, helping single women find love and security in Jesus, and helping sex trafficking victims escape the life and build a new one in the freedom and safety of God’s grace. I want so badly to make a difference in this evil world and to bring God glory by my actions. But like the dashing Clark Kent, I spend the majority of my time “pushing paper.” Not that church bulletins and prayer sheets aren’t important, but they aren’t the things that get my heart racing and my mind spinning with possibilities. Those things are tucked safely in the depths of my heart and soul. The thing is…it’s getting stuffy in there.
Dreams are scary things. I’m not talking about the pizza induced nightmares that wake you up at 4am. I’m talking about the passion that rattles around in your chest and makes it hard for you to breathe sometimes. When God starts to shake you out of your comfort zone and stir up a passion in your heart for His glory it can be terrifying. It is for me. When I think of what I envision for my future, my insecurities and fears come at me like a tidal wave. What if I fail? What if I’m not good enough? What if no one buys my book? What if I try to help someone and I say the wrong thing? Where will I get the money I need? What if I can’t get these ideas off the ground? What if no one supports this? When will I have the time to do everything that needs to be done? Why would anyone want to listen to what I have to say? What if, what if, what if?
These are the thoughts that make me want to hide in my closet and never come out. The best way to ensure that you won’t fail is not to try, right? But then I remember 1 Thessalonians 5:24. I can’t help but remember it because I have it written on a sticky note on the bottom of my computer screen.
Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.
Just like Moses and David and Peter and everyone else in the Bible that God used to do great things, my dreams have very little to do with me. God placed them into my heart, God stirs them up when I try to hide from them, God gives me the courage to pray about them and God will bring them about in His way and in His time. All I have to do is baby-step-it in the right direction. Sometimes that looks like a desperate prayer for wisdom and direction. Sometimes that looks like an email seeking information. Sometimes it looks like late-night research. Sometimes it looks like getting up, going to work and doing what God has given me to do for that day.
Maybe someday I will find myself on a stage in front of 2,000 single ladies or hugging the shoulders of a women that I’ve helped get out from under the control of her pimp…but today is not that day. Today I have to do my best where God has me and take whatever baby step He prompts my heart to take.
Sometimes just doing the everyday stuff is overwhelming. When you wake up with this giant, chest-pounding, adrenaline pumping vision in your mind and you have to set that aside to work on a spreadsheet and answer a phone you can get pretty discouraged. The Enemy knows that and uses it against me to get me to believe that I’m never going to be “successful,” I’m never going to make a difference and my dreams are never going to happen. But then the Holy Spirit whispers into my soul the truth of 1 Thessalonians 5:24. It isn’t up to me. It’s up to God.
Several weeks ago author Jon Acuff wrote a statement that has found its home on a sticky note adjacent to the one I mentioned previously. It says,
“The success of God’s plans are not dependent on my ability to execute them. He will not be handcuffed by my failures or unleashed by my accomplishments. He is bigger than that.”
That statement was such an encouragement to me. God is bigger than my to-do list. God is bigger than my shortcomings. God is bigger than my fears. And whether or not all the visions of my heart come true, He will still be glorified as long as I remain obedient to Him in the little things.
Do you have a passion stirring in your heart? Do you have a special quote or verse that gets you through your doubt-filled days? I’d love to hear from you!
by donyadunlap | Mar 1, 2012 | Modern Day Slavery, The Spiritual Life
I feel so overwhelmed.
I am overwhelmed by the fullness of my heart in seeing how God is at work in me and in the world around me. Some of you know that the Lord has been doing some really amazing things in my life recently. Some days He just takes my breath away and brings tears to my eyes. God has always been at work in my life, but in the last nine months, He has taken things to a whole new level.
A Brief Recap
In June of 2011, I felt the Lord stirring my heart and giving me a deeper burden for single women. Since college I have had a growing passion to be a voice to and for single women, but I thought that passion would be fulfilled with the writing of my book. In June, the Lord showed me that the book was just the beginning. I started praying, dreaming and planning, guided by this new direction and a vague picture began to form in my head. Then it seemed as if God checked out for a while. I don’t mean that irreverently, and I know that in truth He never leaves me, but I went through a period where I felt that He wasn’t speaking to me. I began to get discouraged and frustrated. I wondered if maybe the Voice that I heard in June was really just voices…and that they were telling me that I should be on the lookout for the men in the white coats. But again the floodgates of Heaven have opened and I am swimming in the depths of God’s grace and goodness.
An Added Burden
In January of this year, I was introduced to the truths of modern day slavery. I was shocked to learn that there are an estimated 27 million slaves in the world today, more than at any other time in history. It is believed that human trafficking alone generates over $32 billion in revenue every year. The majority of trafficking victims are between the ages of 18-24, but it gets worse. “The victims most vulnerable are women and children. Children in particular are sold, bonded, trafficked, subjected to commercial sexual exploitation, recruited into armed conflicts and forced to work as domestic workers.” (72daysforfreedom.com, antislavery.org)
This information is troubling, but the statistic that completely broke my heart is that the average age of a person forced into prostitution is 12. TWELVE YEARS OLD. These children, girls and boys, should still be playing with dolls and video games. Instead they are being raped and beaten and threatened in untold ways EVERY SINGLE DAY. And this isn’t just a problem for other countries. This is happening here, in the United States of America, in our neighborhoods, at our sporting events, at truck stops, hotels, massage parlors, restaurants…all around us.
When I started learning about this I was shocked, as I mentioned, but then I got angry. How is it that I didn’t know about this? I lived in Atlanta for 5 years. It’s an awesome city that I love and I miss, but learning that Atlanta is a major hub of human trafficking and that it is ranked in the top 14 cities in the US for child prostitution it made me sick. (Governor’s Office for Children and Families) For five years I lived in peace, safety and happiness while all around me unspeakable things were being done to helpless children who are meant to be protected and loved. When I think of someone hurting my nieces who are the same ages as many of these children, I want to come unglued.
27 million is just a number until you make it personal…and this is personal to me.
I began to pray that God would allow me to be a voice for the children. I had already started plans for a novel to raise awareness of the effects of rape, but I felt the Lord directing me to change my focus. So I began to research and write about sex trafficking…and the more I learned the more God worked. Tonight as I write these thoughts to you, I literally feel as if at any moment the very molecules of my body could let loose. My muscles physically ache with emotion. I long to do something now to make a difference. I post awareness messages on Facebook and Twitter, I research, I beg God to use me to be a champion for freedom, and yet I still have homework, I still have a job, I still have deadlines for my first book, I still have dishes and laundry to do…
The rush of all this emotion and all of these thoughts coursed through my mind and body today as I stuffed suckers and papers into little plastic bags for work, I received a notice that a friend had posted a message in response to a tweet of mine that was copied to Facebook. The message read,
We’ve been studying the book of Nehemiah in church and I love the order of events on his timeline. After he heard of the state of things in Jerusalem he was burdened to the point of sobbing for days. It was this initial grief that made him realize that this burden was from the Lord and a signal to get involved. It reminded me that while others may not get as upset about situations to the same level that I do, that’s okay, because the heaviness of my heart is God’s message to ME to get involved. Thank you for sharing this journey that the Lord’s put you on. It IS encouraging to see that He still uses Christians to right the wrongs of this world.
Her note was an encouragement to me, but the depth of her words didn’t really hit home with me until later this evening. I was reading the first chapters of Nehemiah and noticed that the months Chisleu and Nisan were mentioned. Chisleu is the third month for the Hebrew and the month during which Nehemiah was told of the state of Jerusalem by his friend. Nisan is the seventh month, the month that Artaxerxes noticed that Nehemiah was sad. For four months Nehemiah wept and fasted and prayed for God to do something, and for four months Nehemiah got up, slapped a smile on his face and went to work. I wonder if during those four months he wondered why God tarried His response? Nehemiah was just a regular guy, no different from you or me (except by gender of course). He was a person with responsibilities and deadlines that could not be ignored despite his broken heart. But Nehemiah was not alone in his grief, just as I am not alone in mine. God was at work during those four months of silence. God was preparing the heart of the king to be open to Nehemiah’s request to leave his position and go to Jerusalem. God was preparing supplies and people and working on a timeline that only He could see. And when the time was right, He let Nehemiah in on the secret.
Since January, I have laid my head on my pillow each night and my mind and heart goes out to all the women and children that are just beginning their daily walk through hell on earth. I know I’m not supposed to think such unChristian thoughts such as, “God, why don’t you do something?” but I have…and He gently responds to me, “My child, I am.”
God is always fighting for the helpless, whether or not I see it.
These last two weeks He has given me glimpses of how He is at work. In a total random “chance” event (or by divine appointment as I choose to believe) God prompted a woman named Catherine Smith to comment on a comment that I had left on a blog by Jon Acuff. (Did you follow all of that?) Catherine is the co-founder of the You Are Project, an effort to help women realize their value and significance in the eyes of Christ. Coincidence? I think not. He also arranged it that I would be visiting a friend’s church when they announced a special 72 day effort to raise awareness of human slavery, called 72 Days For Freedom and the corresponding website that is full of information, including prayer points for each day and ways that each of us can get involved to stem the tide of this growing evil in our world. Coincidence? Again, I think not. Every day God whispers encouragement to me through His Word, through messages from friends, through songs on the radio…
“I AM at work. I AM mighty to save. I AM the Father to the Fatherless. I WILL BRING FREEDOM TO THOSE IN BONDAGE!”
God is at work behind the scenes, and if it be His will, one day He will bring me in on the secret and allow me to be a part of His work. But until then, it is my job to be faithful in the daily tasks that He as set before me. It’s okay if I cry my eyes out and fast and plead with God. In fact, I think that’s part of the process. God has to do a work in me too. But His silence doesn’t mean that He doesn’t hear, or that He isn’t busy accomplishing His will for His glory.
One of my absolute favorite passages of Scripture is when Jesus reveals Himself to Mary on the morning of His resurrection. She is grieving, she is heart broken, and she is in a panic because she came to dress the body of her Lord following the Sabbath and He wasn’t in the tomb where He was laid. She is completely beside herself, overcome with weeping to the point that she assumes the blurred form she sees through her tears is the gardener…until He says her name. “Mary.” There was only One that said her name like that. Only one that looked beyond her faults and failures and treated her with unmeasurable love and kindness. It was Jesus.
There was nothing but silence for three days. When all of your dreams and hopes and the One that you love with all your heart are wrapped up together in grave clothes and left to rot in a cave…you can’t get more broken than that. But God was not dead. He was at work behind the scenes. He was fulfilling the prophecies going back centuries before. Only the sobs from Mary’s chest broke the quiet of the morning that day, but the silence was about to bring forth the most glorious shout of joy that I believe the earth has ever heard. “Rabboni!!!” He had conquered death and hell and there He stood before her very eyes. Her Savior. Her Redeemer. Her Jesus. He had freed her from the grasp of seven demons and set her on a path of worship and purpose unlike anything she could have ever imagined. She was granted the privilege of being the first person He revealed Himself to after His resurrection. She is written into history as one that brought much glory to God—a woman that I highly respect and look forward to meeting some day. She was one of the first to testify of His resurrection and took part in the very first meetings of the physical church on this earth.
God used her darkest days to shine forth His most glorious light.
So tonight, as I lay my head on my pillow and think of the hundreds of thousands bound in slavery, I will also think of my wonderful, all-powerful Savior—the One who holds each of His children in the palm of His hand—and I will sleep in peace, trusting Him to make everything beautiful in His time.
Please take a moment to follow the links above for the You Are Project and 72 Days for Freedom. Together we can shine the light of God’s love and pierce the darkness!
