Something Is Not Right...

This is me with my hair the way I like to wear it.

And this is me after I said "Okay." to what He asked me to do...because something isn't right.

And this is the story:

It’s dark and cold and I’m rocking my newborn baby. He’s nursing and I’m half awake. I’ve been mothering for a long time and this middle of the night routine will make me pay tomorrow, I know. But how I view this space in the small hours of the morning have changed since I held my first. An Invitation He made years and years ago ~ to war from an old rocker while nursing my babies has changed me. I smile for a moment as I finish praying and the baby feels warm in my arms and falls softly back to sleep. I’m sitting in this century old home, safe and secure and at peace; but in the spirit I’ve been in SE Asia battling demons that prey on women and children through trafficking.

My days are spent raising six children (1-19), loving my husband who works fulltime in the marketplace while together we lead a training school and a life group at our church here in Fort Worth. I mention these things because it’s important to know that there is little to no space in my schedule to do much of anything else.  This can feel constraining on a good day and downright unfair on a hard day. I’m not wishing for time to start a new hobby, to decorate my home or to join the gym (although I do mean to do all of those things one day;) – I want to see human trafficking ended. Now. I want to move to the other side of the world and rescue these innocent women and children. But since I became aware of this devastating modern day slavery, many years ago, the only way I’ve been able to participate is through prayer. Over the years I’ve prayed and seen nothing in the news or on the Internet. However, over the past few years I have begun to see and hear about movement I knew He had asked me to pray about during the day or night.

And then around the middle of the month of November I was called into prayer again and again - at an unusual rate. I wasn’t aware of anything going on out of the ordinary. But deep groaning’s kept coming and I’d pray as I changed the baby, took the 14yo to school, helped the kindergartener with spelling, cook dinner, picked up my junior from dual credit classes and text my college boy in Waco. And it was on one of my trips to pick up a child that I heard Him say, “Shave your head to mourn for your sisters being trafficked.” And so I did.

Now I’m not one who worries a whole lot about how I look, but I can tell you that shaving my head made me uncomfortable. I don’t like to be the center of attention unless I’m making a point or wanting to be right in a debate. But what I’ve learned over the years is that obeying Him is the place where I feel His presence the most and I long for that more than anything. So when I got home that day I had my oldest daughter and son shave my head in a chair in my kitchen. Looking in the mirror I cried – not for how I looked, but for the very fact that all day, everyday I would not be able to forget the women and children being trafficked. They were before me – always. It was like going to a funeral and never leaving.

It’s been over two months now and my hair has grown and I don’t think about the trafficked with every waking moment. What came out of that act of obedience was open doors for conversation about trafficking, awareness that it even exits, a platform to talk about ways people can help, the ability for the first time to pray for the predators, hearing of women who don’t know me shaving their heads to bring awareness too, a new understanding of how women who have been used can feel stripped of everything beautiful and more importantly I know that I obeyed Him.

Because I believe I have an Audience of One it’s very easy to “just pray” and trust Him with the results. I believe that one day I’ll get to hug my sisters who have been rescued because people like you and I prayed and took action. But for this brief season of motherhood I am doing the active part of praying and backing off demons preying on the innocent, raising children who want to see Justice brought to the poor and trying to find some cute short haircuts. ;)

I still have that old rocker and I don’t sit down into her old worn upholstery often, but when I do I feel like I’m saddling up onto my horse and running to battle. For the King, because He alone is worthy!