FREEDOM: free·dom ˈfrēdəm/ noun
" ..at the end of a day, Lord, of skies of fireworks & fireflies and campfires with family & this bold & fearless faith in a future of beckoning steeples & brave people — we thank God for a freedom that presses on till all the oppressed are relieved that won’t give up till those without liberty taste real delivery that wages on till those who've been chained have gained a joy beyond the walls of this world. " - Ann Voskamp Last night under the same stars where thousands of fireworks exploded over Americas freedom thousands of refugees seek answers. Thousands of slaves long for freedom. Thousands of men, women and children long to be seen as more the just commodities...Men, women and children from our own country. On the other side of the world mothers lay awake at night wondering how to keep their crying children from going hungry day after day. Fathers lay awake looking at the night sky wondering what tomorrow will bring. Will their interview cause them to be deported? Or will the interview be delayed causing them to be stuck in a the refugee camp for a few more months under less than ideal circumstances? There are two single ladies who cross with many others from Turkey on a small boat. They spend their first night in the refugee camp in the new arrivals tent with unknown men, women and crying babies. One of them is nine months pregnant and she spends her second night in the refugee camp facing contractions and pain alone. She has nothing for her baby. Beside her on the next bed sleeps a young girl who is eight months pregnant, her body covered in scars. Above them is a young mother of two and her third child is three months along. In the same room there is a lady who was sold as a child, she was forced into slave labor. Then sold again, and again.... And now she is alone in the dark. A few days later the lady who was 9 months pregnant brings me her small baby boy, her face shining for the first time in months. "Gods Gift", she says. - “If you live gladly to make others glad in God, your life will be hard, your risks will be high, and your joy will be full.” ― John Piper “Fight for us, O God, that we not drift numb and blind and foolish into vain and empty excitements. Life is too short, too precious, too painful to waste on worldly bubbles that burst. Heaven is too great, hell is too horrible, eternity is too long that we should putter around on the porch of eternity.” ― John Piper I've held more women than I can remember in my arms that sobbed over rape, death, human trafficking, forced abortions, forced drugs, scars from abuse, scars made by men who didn't want them to run away from the rooms they were locked up in... These are rooms where women are forced to work as sex slaves. Sex slaves that are held at gun point and had the sharp blade of a knife held to their bodies. We are not called to get over the brokenness that we have seen, God wants us to heal from it but He also wants us to grow in passion and love for the broken..For it is there that His heart thrives. It is there that Christ is needed the most. " ... Our Lord did not abandon us. He left glory, entered our darkness, and did not run, even when facing the cross. He felt like running. He was overwhelmed by what he faced, but he did not abandon humanity. ( Luke 22:42,44 ). He did not leave us alone in our mess, our alarm moments. He does not leave us now. Had he abandoned us, we would have never found our way out. We could not see, we could not think, we could not walk upright. He stays and waits and calls us to come to him. You will want to abandon. There will be a phone call too many, one bad choice too many. You will feel heavy. You will want a life free from crisis and alarms. But the love of the Father does not abandon his own. I see many times we in the body of Christ start off well with a crisis but do not have the staying power. We find it difficult to maintain connection with crisis, especially chronic ones, so we abandon those who have no choice about suffering in their lives. They cannot abandon the suffering and so must endure it alone. Our Head who entered in also does not abandon. '' - DIANE LANGBERG A few get away.... I've heard stories of women escaping through windows or try to run but get their knees sliced by angry, hurting men with machetes. Women who face oceans of fears... women who cried over the ocean itself. The ocean that has swallowed up countless lives. The ocean that leaves small children stiff from trauma, the ocean that is used as a gateway into Europe.. not only for refugees who seek a better life but for smugglers who are treating humans as commodities. '' Human trafficking is the fastest-growing criminal industry in the world, generating more than $150 billion USD every year. '' - A21 '' THERE ARE MILLIONS OF SLAVES IN THE WORLD TODAY MORE THAN EVER BEFORE IN HUMAN HISTORY. '' - A21 Kings & Queens Audio Adrenaline ''Little hands, shoeless feet, lonely eyes looking back at me Will we leave behind the innocent too brief On their own, on the run when their lives have only begun These could be our daughters and our sons And just like a drum I can hear their hearts beating I know my God won’t let them be defeated Every child has a dream to belong and be loved Boys become kings, girls will be queens Wrapped in Your majesty When we love, when we love the least of these Then they will be brave and free Shout your name in victory When we love when we love the least of these When we love the least of these. '' It was my last night in the refugee camp. My eyes were open to more pain than my heart could hold. I sat on a bench with a woman whose brokenness and darkness was heavy. She repeated over and over, "I met you too late! I needed to meet you sooner. I need you to help me. Can you stay?" Those words... I looked up and saw one of my friends dancing in a group of girls. Her dancing stopped as she turned around and faced me; I saw her black mascara running down her face. She walked over to me__her body weak, her heart broken. Tears streaming down her face and pain seeping from her soul. "I just lost my pregnancy Kendie. No one cares about me, I'm invisible to the world." Then after five months she told me her true story. Against her will she was pregnant at the age of fourteen. She was sent out of her home at the age of sixteen. She was then trapped into the commercial sex industry. The only man she ever loved was murdered. So she fled with hopes of a better future. "But look at me!" she cried. "I'm stuck in a refugee camp and I would rather be living under a bridge than knowing my son is hungry right now." Then she said "I was going to commit suicide this morning, but I'm still alive because I got a message from my baby boy telling me that God was never going to leave me. All I have left is God. And I'm still here... But I don't know why.." '' Break our hearts once again Help us to remember when We were only children hoping for a friend Won’t you look around these are the lives that the world has forgotten Waiting for doors of our hearts and our homes to open Boys become kings, girls will be queens Wrapped in Your majesty When we love, when we love the least of these Then they will be brave and free Shout your name in victory When we love when we love the least of these When we love the least of these If not us who will be like Jesus To the least of these If not us tell me who will be like Jesus Like Jesus to the least of these Boys become kings, girls will be queens Wrapped in your majesty When we love, when we love the least of these Then they will be brave and free shout your name in victory We will love we will love the least of these We will love the least of these We will love the least of these We will love the least of these We will love the least of these We will love the least of these '' 2 Corinthians 4:6--12 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. 7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side,but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. Psalm 107:14-1614 He brought them out of darkness, the utter darkness, and broke away their chains. 15 Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind, 16 for he breaks down gates of bronze and cuts through bars of iron. I've held broken people, but I've also been the broken person who has been held. His brokenness heals all our brokenness. People don't see the way my hands are shacking right now as I type this. People don't know the way they shook with sobs as I held them...Women who keep room fulls of women awake from their sobbing. We live in a broken world and we are all seeking answers and asking to be loved. God is not asking us to get over the brokenness that we have seen, He wants us to heal from it but He also wants us to grow in passion and love for the broken..For it is there that His heart thrives. It is there that Christ is needed the most. “Nothing about my birth - or yours - was random or accidental. I was born for this time - and so were you. We were each chosen for a particular, cosmically important task that can be done by no one else.” ― Christine Caine “It is one thing to be awakened to injustice and quite another to be willing to be inconvenienced and interrupted to do something about it.” ― Christine Caine “How easy it is to let the depth of the ditch or the severity of the brokenness stop a good work before we even stoop down to do it.” ― Christine Caine
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