In this post, I express why it is so important to be aware of human trafficking, though I try to connect it with a hopeful message of God and His love.

As a follower of the Christian faith, I can get very caught up in my personal relationship with God that I do not pay attention to the horrors existing at this very moment, all over the world.

I am of great value to God, but we all are. We all are equally and infinitely loved by Him. Right now, I am compelled to spread some awareness on the specific issue of human trafficking. If now is not a good time for you to read this due to its triggering matter or information overload… I encourage you to push through and read all of this. You could save someone’s life with this information—but I also will leave you with some rather profound statements on suffering from C.S. Lewis and Timothy Keller. 

Human trafficking is defined as follows: “Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery that involves the exploitation of individuals for labor or commercial sex. The trauma of being trafficked can have lasting physical and psychological effects, including physical injury, anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Despite the challenges, many victims of trafficking are able to find a path to recovery and reclaim their lives. With access to appropriate medical care, therapy, and support, they can heal from the trauma of their experience and rebuild their lives. In some cases, victims may also find comfort in sharing their stories and advocating for others in similar situations. With perseverance, resilience, and the support of loved ones and community, victims of trafficking can overcome their experience and move towards a brighter future.”

Without social media and online resources, I would not be nearly as educated on the topic of Human Trafficking as I am now. So, spreading the truth of Christianity and the horrific evils of human trafficking via social media might reach someone else. I have spent the last few hours educating myself and listening to people’s stories. Please educate yourself on this issue and stay very vigilant. 

Here are some resources that have immensely helped me comprehend the horrors of human trafficking. Operation Underground Rescue @ourrescue // The Sound of Freedom @soundoffreedommovie // Human Trafficking Institute @traffickinginst // 30 for Freedom @30forfreedom ♥️ Along with these resources, there are stories of people’s survival on YouTube and especially the movie The Sound of Freedom. 

And it seems that posting a Bible verse on my story might seem futile when considering the magnitude of human trafficking… but it is the best I can do right now. Christ is real and He walked this Earth. Since He was half-God half-human, He was infinite, giving Him the ability to take upon Himself the entire suffering of humanity the day He was crucified. But I can understand why someone might not believe that. Proverbs 31:8-9 reads, “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.” Mark 15:34 reads, “And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).

At the end of the day, God’s children are not for sale. No human being is for sale. No human being deserves even a tiny shred of this sort of horrific treatment. 

Please God protect anyone and everyone currently forced into the horrific evil of human trafficking, certainly young children. I genuinely can not comprehend experiencing such a horror myself that my problems literally seem so tiny and insignificant in comparison—and they are. I have problems, sure. I have a family that loves me, food, a place to live, and the freedom to eat my favorite chocolate chip french toast whenever I want. Everyone deserves that. Everyone deserves a family that loves them and a safe place to live. Everyone deserves the freedom to do and live as they please, enjoying the little parts of life as much as they possibly can.

This world can be absolutely awful, and humans are capable and have enacted so much horrible evil; with all of this suffering it can feel impossible for us that feel Your light… but it is not impossible for You to overcome this darkness. I do not want this post to turn into a theodicy or something, and it’s not like I can even begin to understand or comprehend why evil exists. I simply know that it exists. The good news is that I know God exists, walking with us to overcome it. No human being was created for such depravity. We were not created for death. We were not created for suffering. We were not created for illness. We were not meant to ever, ever, endure this magnitude of pain. 

We were created for life.

We were created for love, community, freedom, peace, family, hope, faith, compassion, and joy. 

That is what God intended. 

I hope you are moved to spread awareness on this issue, too, after reading this. Here are some profound statements from C.S. Lewis and Timothy Keller. I pray that these can inspire hope within your soul despite the horrific evils and agonies of this world. Human trafficking has been a very difficult topic to research and write about, but it is important that I do not stay silent on something so depraved. 

“The human spirit will not even begin to try to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it. Now error and sin both have this property, that the deeper they are the less their victim suspects their existence; they are masked evil. Pain is unmasked, unmistakable evil; every man knows that something is wrong when he is being hurt.”

— C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

“Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself.”

— C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

“You may have noticed that the books you really love are bound together by a secret thread. You know very well what is the common quality that makes you love them, though you cannot put it into words: but most of your friends do not see it at all, and often wonder why, liking this, you should also like that. Again, you have stood before some landscape, which seems to embody what you have been looking for all your life; and then turned to the friend at your side who appears to be seeing what you saw -- but at the first words a gulf yawns between you, and you realise that this landscape means something totally different to him, that he is pursuing an alien vision and cares nothing for the ineffable suggestion by which you are transported. Even in your hobbies, has there not always been some secret attraction which the others are curiously ignorant of -- something, not to be identified with, but always on the verge of breaking through, the smell of cut wood in the workshop or the clap-clap of water against the boat's side? Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it -- tantalising glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest -- if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself -- you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say "Here at last is the thing I was made for". We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all.”

— C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

“Christianity teaches that, contra fatalism, suffering is overwhelming; contra Buddhism, suffering is real; contra karma, suffering is often unfair; but contra secularism, suffering is meaningful. There is a purpose to it, and if faced rightly, it can drive us like a nail deep into the love of God and into more stability and spiritual power than you can imagine.”

— Timothy Keller, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

“You will never really understand your heart when things are going well. It is only when things go badly that you can see it truly. And that’s because it is only when suffering comes that you realize who is the true God and what are the false gods of your lives. Only the true God can go with you through that furnace and out to the other side. The other gods will abandon you in the furnace.”

— Timothy Keller, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering 

“Be sure that the ins and outs of your individuality are no mystery to Him; and one day they will no longer be a mystery to you...God will look to every soul like its first love because He is its first love. Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone, because you were made for it--made for it stitch by stitch as a glove is made for a hand.”

— C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

“The problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of God who loves, is only insoluble so long as we attach a trivial meaning to the word 'love' and look on things as if man were the centre of them.”

— C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

“God gives us what we would have asked for if we knew everything that He knows. The idea that the prince of Heaven would empty himself and become poor, to live and dwell among us is humbling. The idea that there is nothing in the human experience that God himself has not suffered, even losing a child, is sustaining. And the idea that in His resurrection, Jesus’ scars became His glory is empowering. God will use these scars for His glory, as they become our glory. Indeed, the end hasn’t been written.”

— Timothy Keller, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

We were created for life.

We were created for love, community, freedom, peace, family, hope, faith, compassion, and joy. 

That is what God intended. 

Thank you for reading. Pax Christi.

Essay by Samantha Fuchsgruber

Date // 07. July 2023

@LockheartArdenPublishing