Confession:
The #metoo movement makes me sick.
In any church, 1 in 4 females and 1 in 6 males have experienced some sort of sexual assault, abuse or molestation. Step outside those walls and that number grows exponentially. Why? Why is our world so depraved? So sick? And why does it just continue?
I don’t have the answer, other than to point directly to sin and its grip on the world.
I know that sin. I’ve been a victim of another’s sick twisted thirst for pleasure. I could scream to the world my own #metoo story. It’s ugly and filled with pain but I do not live trapped there as a victim. For years, I struggled with shame and guilt for a crime I didn’t ask for. God didn’t leave me there — He filled me with grace and opened my heart to forgiveness. Still, I’m a #metoo person.
Confession:
The #metoo movement makes me angry.
Everywhere you look, celebrities are crying out and some of them in the ugliest forms regarding sexual criminality. The message has gotten garbled in many of their cries. By saying that I am not in any way dismissing their voices. I’m sorry for each misuse of power over any victim; woman, child …whomever! Abuse is abuse and it should be brought to light. No matter the victim.
The USA gymnastic doctor whose long list of victims horrifies me. Like many, I’ve wondered WHY? Why didn’t anyone speak up? The things he did with parents right under his nose wrecks my heart! Dear Lord, why? He deserves the punishment he receives and as a believer of Jesus Christ – I pray for his soul. He, no different than me….needs God and the forgiveness of his sins.
The Harvey W’s of the world seem to be everywhere too. Power exudes greed in too many that believe the lie that they’re entitled to abuse and use women and others for their satisfaction. The vulnerable fall victim too often to the hungry wolves of this stature. No one deserves to be used, exploited or treated as an object by these perverted evil people. Yet, the list of victims goes for miles.
For all of history, sexual crimes have been hidden or covered and not addressed as they deserve. Ask in any group of people if they or someone they know have been a victim or affected by sexual misconduct at some point in their life. I would almost bet there would be some raised hands. Today, we see a movement of people standing up and saying NO MORE.
Confession:
I can’t stand some of the methods of delivery being issued by the #metoo speakers.
The #metoo movement isn’t the only grossly negligent sexual horror going on in our world. Let’s not forget the sex trafficking business! Children are bought and sold as if they weren’t even human beings. Little tiny children. Many of these young & vulnerable children are oftentimes sold by their own parents!! Who’s fighting for them? Who is beating down society’s doors with pleas of help for them? Who is plastering the covers of Sports Illustrated and other magazines to scream justice for them? Crickets. Rarely do I hear a word about sex trafficking crimes and that disgusts me to the core.
Last Sunday, a member of my church spoke about a series of articles that he’s spent the last year or more researching to write to oust the child sex trafficking nightmare going on all around us. Tim Swarens has been in the dump and more learning everything he could to shed light on this crime of horror. His stories are heart-wrenching and filled with the reality that this crime is bigger than we like to imagine it is.
I’m linking up the articles published by USA Today so far and I challenge you to read them and forget what is the reality for so many. Next time you catch a magazine cover with a young woman wearing nothing but a word written on her body claiming #metoo…. think about the little girl who rides a bike with training wheels that’s used for sexual gratification by a grown man.
I’ll let you decipher the two. Both are victims.
So, my message to the #metoo movement: I’m sorry for what happened to you. I’m angry that someone would misuse you. I’m sick that anyone would think of you as a tool or a piece of property to be used and tossed aside. But, you are powerful. You are not held to a victim stake to burn and die there. You have strength, people who believe you and the hope to fight back any person who thinks otherwise. You can also stick up and fight for the little voices that are held prisoner in a world you cannot imagine. Please rise up and fight for others, those who cannot do it for themselves.
Child sex trafficking is real. Just as real as every casting couch sleaze ball making the moves on a young beautiful woman. Fight for them too!
CLICK ON THESE LINKS TO READ TIM’S ARTICLES
Who buys a trafficked child for sex? Otherwise ordinary men
The sex trafficking victim who needs training wheels
Boys — the silent victims of sex trafficking
It lights up the brain like crack: why men buy sex?
I’ll wrap up my post with this, the church has a responsibility to do something. We cannot look the other way. What exactly does that look like? I don’t know. For me, I refuse to cover up sexual sin for anyone. Whether it be for a wealthy young celeb or an orphan being sold for drugs. God loves both and He cares about what happens to them. My challenge is for each of us to figure out what exactly it is that we can do to stop the evil dangled in our face.
If you are someone who has experienced such evil…I’m so sorry that happened to you. God loves you and values you even though you’ve been treated otherwise.
Lord Jesus,
Make it known, every ugly sin hidden in darkness by every perpetrator of sexual deviance. Light up every dark corner of our world. Open every heart that hurts for the ones who cannot fight for themselves. Let us stop what the enemy parades as secret! Here, now and everywhere!
Amen
Tags: #metoo, child trafficking, sex trafficking, sexual sin, sin