After a wonderful day with my daughter, shopping and preparing for her June wedding, I returned to a piece of art I have been processing for quite a while. What a contrast in my day – going from great joy over a new marriage to great sorrow for the women and children who are trapped in the sex traffic industry. This is a piece for a specific call for work – beauty in brokenness – responding to the sex traffic industry through art. I printed out photos from my travels where I cared for women and children in difficult places. Yes, even children. I wove those photos into the piece, along with hand made painted papers.
My photos became a part of the story I am trying to tell. The stories of these children and women are important, and their lives are of great value – contrary to what they have been told and how they have been treated. I want them to see themselves as beautiful in God’s eyes – and that they are worth rescuing and worth restoring their innocence and true womanhood.
I pray it is a piece that will make people think, maybe start a conversation, and bring hope to many enslaved and trafficked. Really, it is a picture of all of us. We are prisoners of our own idolatry and false gods. Only when we drop our idols, including our own pride, and surrender to Jesus, our healer and redeemer, can we be free to be beautiful.
I’ve gone back into the piece, and I have added the word “safe.” I’ve found in my own life, and in the lives I have cared for, one needs to feel safe before healing may begin. Are you, in your lives, a safe place for others to share their hearts and their stories?
