The One who Wants to See

When I was growing up, I was very imaginative. I was always playing weird games outside, pretending that I was a deer in a forest or that my playhouse was really a castle in an enchanted kingdom. I was always looking up at the sky and marveling at the clouds. A rainstorm meant the chance to dance down the street barefoot and take in the fresh, clean, air. I almost remember feeling as though I was a part of all that was around me. I remember talking to God then, too. A lot.

I was also very creative. I've loved music and art as long as I can remember. I remember sharing my creativity most with my stuffed animals, pets and imaginary outdoor friends. It's a shame, because none of them ever asked to see what I was doing. They just sat, motionless, and let me show them. I guess that was enough when I was a child. I was aware that I had something special to share. A picture, a painting, a poem... but, sadly, I didn't get much feedback.

As I grew into an adult, there were no longer toys and pets to look at the things I created. I ended up hiding them away and, in some cases, dismissing them altogether.


I've learned recently, through a lot of soul searching and discontent, that there is One who wants to see all of those things. He put them there, you see. He has tugged, ever so gently on the creative parts of my heart for a very long time, as if to remind me that we used to dance in the rain together when I was young and that the beautiful ideas I had as a child were truly from Him.
It's as though He's waiting for me with a huge smile that says, "What's that you have? Can I see?"

Fear has kept me from pursuing creative endeavors. It's not fear of failure so much as fear of success! It's so much easier, and less painful, to keep it inside.
God is teaching me to stop putting so much stock in what people think and reminding me that He won't reject me and He wants to see what I can do for His glory through the creativity that came from Him in the first place.

I'm not entirely sure why I decided to blog on this, but I hope it will resonate with another creative spirit that needs encouragement to reach into the dark places where they've hidden all that is beautiful about them.

Take it out and share it with the One who wants to see.

What's in your hand?

Sometimes people do extraordinarily horrible things. History is filled with atrocities committed against people from the dawn of time to our present age. Crime after crime. Injustice after injustice. Evil after evil. The world has been filled with it and remains so to this day. Of all the things that people have endured at the hand of evil minds, however, nothing remotely compares to the horrific injustice we presently face in human sex trafficking. I learned that, in my own city, the average age of a girl forced into prostitution is 13.
I look at that statistic and weep.
My oldest daughter is 13.

Then again, sometimes God does extraordinarily miraculous things through ordinary people. I had the life-altering privilege, last night, of listening to a speaker that can only be referred to as a modern-day abolitionist. His name is Pat McCall.
Pat has been called by God to eradicate child sex slavery through the unique and long-overdue approach of unifying forces in the city, regardless of belief, for the common purpose of doing justice. He started a ministry in the Phoenix area called, "Streetlight."
It exists to educate the public about child sex slavery, rescue those who have fallen victim and give them a safe place to heal, while pursuing stricter punishment for those who commit these unfathomable crimes.

Of all the things he said during his presentation, one in particular stuck out to me. He said that there is a common mindset among people that basically says, "If we can't do everything, then we shouldn't do anything." This paralysis has led to very little being done about problems like human sex trafficking. We look at such a huge, dark, horrible problem and think that it's impossible to fix. Or, in most cases, we don't look at it at all.

Then he talked about Moses.
He mentioned the passage in Exodus, chapter 4, where Moses was called by God to lead the Hebrew people out of Egypt. Moses argued with God, saying, "What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The LORD did not appear to you’?” and God asked Moses, "What is in your hand?"
Moses was holding a staff. That's all he had. The Lord told him to throw it on the ground. When he did, the staff turned into a serpent. Then, the Lord told him to pick it up by the tail, and Moses did. It turned back into a staff. The Lord reminded Moses that what He was asking him to do was not by his own power, but God's.

What Pat McCall envisioned in Streetlight is not by his own power. What God is doing is rescuing His little children from the horrors of sex slavery by using a man who believes in the power of a miraculous God and knows that there is strength in unity.

I now support Streetlight.
I can't do everything, but I can do something, and I can't think of many things more important to do with my resources than help to rescue our precious children from the nightmare of sex trafficking. Can you?

Please take a moment to visit the website and ask yourself, "What is in my hand? And what could God do with it?" http://www.streetlightphx.com/