Over a year to be exact.
But I thought today would be a good day to share.
And it may be long, so stay with me.
It goes back to early January 2012.
I was busy getting my house & myself ready to spend a few days away at the Passion conference in Atlanta. I was tagging along as the driver for the group & was excited to spend a few days under the words & songs of this conference - a place that shaped me in many ways years ago.
The night before we left, I had one of the scariest, most realist yet unrealistic dreams I have ever had.
It was about my Sophie and she was lost. Taken, in fact.
We were canvasing the neighborhood in search for my girl.
I found myself in a house with many floors & many rooms.
Each door opened was another dead end.
Until I opened one and there she was.
But she was different.
She was in a dress.
She had make-up on her face and bows in her hair.
Her eyes were empty.
And when she saw me, she didn't recognize me.
I scooped my girl up, carried her out of the door and woke from that horrid nightmare.
The next morning, I felt sick when I woke.
I remember going to find Sophie when my feet hit the floor.
She was snuggled on the couch watching cartoons, like any other morning without school.
I'm sure she thought it was weird that I squeezed her tight & kissed her rounded cheeks that morning, seeing as I'm usually non-functioning until after my coffee, but I knew the exact reason for my affections that morning. I hugged & kissed everyone goodbye & headed to Atlanta, all the while still trying to process that hellish dream from the night before. I kept trying to recall all the little details from it & wondered where this literal nightmare had came from?
Fast forward to the second day of the Passion conference.
The speaker's name is Christine Cain & she's an abolitionist, front runner of the A21 campaign and she has me from the first words out of her mouth . . . " there are 27 million people living in slavery today, that's more than ANY other time in the history of our world . . . 80% are women and CHILDREN forced into the sex industry . . ."
I felt myself break. I was appalled, angry even at the fact that I was completely oblivious to her statements.
How could this be?!
She begins to tell a story of what first awakened her to this injustice that is very much still spreading.
She was in an airport where a little girl was lost.
A little blond headed girl who was taken.
Her portrait hung all over the airport - a family desperate to find the little girl they loved.
Hoping & praying that the worst of their imagination hadn't come true - that she wasn't sold or trafficked.
That she was safe & they would find her soon.
A little girl in the airport.
Her name was Sophie.
Here we are, a year after, and I still don't fully understand where that dream came from and the obvious connection it has with the story I was to hear days later.
I still don't know that extents of what God has awakened in me that day about these things.
I'm over a year out from that day and still pray everyday for a way to be a voice.
So, here's my voice today.
the red X.
It's not to be cool. or hip. or cliche'.
To me, it's a way to use my voice today.
A way to raise awareness.
A way to being an end.
A way to speak for those who can not speak for themselves.
A way to speak for all the "Sophie's" in the world.
We hear your voices.
We'll fight your fight until there is no more.
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