a new name

“Are your ears awake? Listen. Listen to the Wind Words, the Spirit blowing through the churches. I’ll give the sacred manna to every conqueror; I’ll also give a clear, smooth stone inscribed with your new name, your secret new name.” -Revelation 2:17

I was watching a documentary on human trafficking the other day called ‘Very Young Girls.’ Most of the film was based out of a place called GEMS located in New York. GEMS is a facility for girls who are trying to get out of ‘the life’ and the cameras followed a few of them as they went through that process.

Most of these girls are manipulated into prostitution at the age of thirteen. They are told they are beautiful, loved and promised a better life if they can just make the money to get out of where they are. The psychological trap is not a lot different than a woman who stays with her abusive husband. ‘He loves me.’ The girls are so torn down that they are dependent on the dysfunctional combination of daddy-boyfriend-pimp for everything. When the girls are selling their bodies, they are doing it out of love (as they understand it) for their pimp.

I connected with an experience that one of the girls had as she was signing in to the GEMS program. She was filling out her paperwork and didn’t know what name to put down. She could write the name she used in her prostitution world: Vanessa, or she could use the name she was born with: Carolina. The hang up for her was that nobody knew her as the girl who wasn’t a prostitute. She was so detached from innocence that she didn’t know if she could use her own name anymore.

It made my heart ache because, though all of our lives and choices are different, self loathing feels the same. This girl, as she heals, will be able to separate herself from her mistakes a little bit more than most because she has a ‘clean’ name. She wasn’t her ‘real self’ when she was living that life. That was somebody else.

Aching to be something less damaged is not exclusive to the obviously damaged. We all walk around with the pain of not wanting to be what we’ve done. A believer can have faith that God sees them as clean, but not have the ability to see themselves as clean. God does not remember, but people do. You can see the reflection of your sin in the eyes of someone else and it has the power to cripple you with shame.

I hope that it comforts you to know that God sees you as something you’ve never even imagined. Your identity in Him is so detached from even your best qualities that He’s given you a new name and, one day, we will be known as He knows us.

You’ll get a brand-new name straight from the mouth of God. You’ll be a stunning crown in the palm of God’s hand, a jeweled gold cup held high in the hand of your God. No more will anyone call you Rejected, and your country will no more be called Ruined. You’ll be called …My Delight…because God delights in you. -Isaiah 62:2-4

I want to add that the GEMS website has a ‘donate’ page and among the opportunities to help them are wish lists for Target and Amazon.com. They need simple things like bras and underwear and items to take care of the babies. These girls escape their pimps with nothing but the clothes on their back. If we can make it easier for them to survive in practical ways, the chances of them not going back are better. It’s a great idea and an easy way to contribute to a fantastic organization. Here’s the link: Donate to GEMS!

take heart

You cast your lot and you’re waiting for the engine to roar to life. Your bags are packed, belongings sold, windows boarded.

But, the wet from your goodbye kiss has already dried. Your stomach is growling, your new boots are pinching your toes and the clock keeps reminding you that he’s there. There was no band to greet you and there are no familiar faces waiting to guide you.

You knew doubt would be part of your journey, but the onset is like a blanket of fear that covers the brochures you tattered while you daydreamed in your bed.

When is it okay to get angry? Can you step out of Keeping It Together and scream at nothing? It’s all falling apart and maybe it’s supposed to, but it still hurts like hell.

‘Take heart,’ He says. ‘Don’t quit.’

But you have nothing to hang on to. You have nothing to let go. You have given up everything for a promise and the promise is a breath in your ear rather than substance in your hands.

They’re all watching. Those who heard the lilt in your voice and watching you carry your estate to your front yard. They tried to give you an out, but you refused. You knew your Hope would not let you down. But, oh, how if feels like He’s letting you down. Letting you drown. Forgetting the command to pick up your cross and follow Him.

Warm me, your servant, with a smile; save me because you love me. Don’t embarrass me by not showing up. -Psalm 31:16-17

‘Take heart’, He says. But you rant and cry. You cramp and quake until your whole body aches. You drink to numb, but still wake up alone.

Sometimes I ask God, my rock-solid God, “Why did you let me down? Why am I walking around in tears, harassed by enemies?” They’re out for the kill, these tormentors with their obscenities, Taunting day after day, “Where is this God of yours?” -Psalm 42:9-10

‘I have nothing to hold on to!’ I have nothing to hold on to. The cries of the one who found out Who was sovereign and Who can do as He pleases when He pleases whether or not it pleases me. ‘I have nothing to hold on to’ are the screams of ’self’ that is giving it’s last effort to find something within existence to give her hope other than to simply hope in the One who says we can put our hope in Him.

Be brave. Be strong. Don’t give up. Expect God to get here soon. -Psalm 31:24

I am not brave, Father, and I am not strong. I’m just a girl who wants you to show up. I listen day and night for the sounds of the drummer in the distance announcing the arrival of the One who will turn valley’s into mountain tops and groaning into laughter.

And so we wait. When you have no voice left to scream and no tears left to cry, when you don’t care about getting and you just wait for sleep to come while you breath in and then breath out. The quiet is comfort the shivering has subsided. The ’self’ has succumbed as the lamb lies on a bed of grass under the stars.

Morning is peering through your dreams and creation wells up as if to speak.

What’s God going to say to my questions? I’m braced for the worst. I’ll climb to the lookout tower and scan the horizon. I’ll wait to see what God says, how he’ll answer my complaint.

And then God answered: “Write this. Write what you see. Write it out in big block letters so that it can be read on the run. This vision-message is a witness pointing to what’s coming. It aches for the coming—it can hardly wait! And it doesn’t lie. If it seems slow in coming, wait. It’s on its way. It will come right on time. -Habakkuk 2:1-3

give hope

The Sarah Home, located in Chico, California is asking for your help by donating copies of ‘Grace Is For Sinners’ for the women in their recovery program.

The Sarah Home for Women was founded by Janet Bennett. We are a part of The Well Ministry of Rescue in Chico, California. We are a 12 month Christian based recovery program. We utilize the 12-step method and Boundaries teachings, along with various group and individual Bible studies. The Sarah Home is a residential facility located in a beautiful Chico neighborhood. -Taken from their website.

Learn more about The Sarah Home by clicking here.

You can purchase books for the ladies at a 40% discount or donate money to go toward the purchase of books. They need 36 copies.

Thanks for your help! We’ll keep you posted on the progress!
Candra Schauer donated $25. Thanks Candra!!!!
Janelle Davis donated $50. Thanks Janelle!!!!!!

Why?

All this trouble is a clear sign that God has decided to make you fit for the kingdom. You’re suffering now, but justice is on the way. -2 Thessalonians 1:5

Why does violence fall on that home and not the one next to it? Why does cancer take one good daddy, but not the abusive daddy? Why do bad things happen to good people?

Jesus said, “Why are you calling me good? No one is good, only God.” -Mark 10:18

No one is ‘good’, so where do we draw the line? What is ‘good enough’ and is the standard the same for everybody?

When I was between the ages of six and ten, I was in foster care. Outside of foster care I was left home by myself with nothing but a bottle in my crib. All of my baby teeth were rotten. I was starved. I remember a very long span of time where we would sit down to a piece of buttered bread and a glass of water for dinner. I was tortured. My mom’s boyfriend would control her by threatening my life. If she didn’t obey him, he would dangle me off of a balcony by my ankle. I know what the cock of a pistol hammer sounds like in my ear.

Why do bad things happen to kids?

As painful as my memories are, when I got into foster care I was protected and fed. I can go into the fact that I was always ‘the foster kid.’ I was always ’second’ or ‘temporary.’ No one wants to invest in something that could only be there for a few weeks.  But, I can’t focus on that. As many things as I may have every human right to complain about, my sister had it worse.

She would have given anything if hungry and forgotten were all she had to worry about. She would rather be a writhing, screaming toddler held by her ankle over a concrete parking lot from a third story balcony. Maybe she wouldn’t mind the smell of gun metal or the bruise on her temple.

I remember her always saying she wished she were a boy. She was a beautiful little girl with red curly hair and freckles. When someone would tell her how beautiful her hair was, she’d say, ‘I know.’ I didn’t know her very well, we were in separate foster homes for most of our childhoods.

My sister’s hell began in foster care. When she would tell me about being held prisoner in a bedroom while she could hear our brother playing with his friends outside the window, I understood why she wished she was a boy. The repeated trauma that her five year old body survived, left her incapable of holding her bladder while she slept. When she moved to another family, they saw her incontinence as an act of rebellious hate and they would put her in a scalding tub and scrub her skin raw with abrasive dish pads. She believed them when they told her she was filthy inside and out.

Why does this happen?

Scripture tells us to die to ourselves, to consider every loss as gain.

I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. -Philippians 3:8

If a person endures suffering, their standards for living are lower. A prisoner of war doesn’t care what kind of hotel he sleeps in when he’s rescued. A starving child doesn’t care how the steak is prepared. My sister loved our adoptive family  and I had a harder time.

Do you submit your life to God under your terms or His? What if He lets your life be destroyed only to purify your faith? What if He won’t heal my sister because He wants her to believe that His grace covers her shortcomings?

Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, it’s your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of his victory. -1 Peter 1:7

Life steals our innocence and leaves us wrecked. A mother can hold her sick baby in her arms and be in the middle of praying for healing when God takes the baby home. A wife can fight off the attraction to another man while her husband is giving himself to another woman. Innocent children can be collateral damage in the storms of their parents lives.

After evil rips through like a tornado and uproots innocence and hope, what’s left? Where do the survivors go? What are we supposed to do now? How can you make sense out of the senseless?

I think the answer is found in the letting go.

Since Jesus went through everything you’re going through and more, learn to think like him. Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way. Then you’ll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want. -1 Peter 4:1-2

This is hard teaching. Jesus asks for everything. What do you want? Do you want to go through the process or do you want your life back? There is always hope. You just have to learn where to put your hope.

So keep a firm grip on the faith. The suffering won’t last forever. It won’t be long before this generous God who has great plans for us in Christ—eternal and glorious plans they are!—will have you put together and on your feet for good. He gets the last word; yes, he does. -1 Peter 5:9