Guest Post: Why We Need God Now More Than Ever

Written by Mrs. A-i-T:

This is a weird night for me. It’s 3:02AM as I write this, and I’m more awake now than I was about 45mins ago because I have these images in my mind. You see I just finished watching this documentary called, “Very Young Girls” on Showtime. This documentary aired months ago but I missed it for some reason (probably a good one) because I remember making a mental note to watch it. As I changed the channel, because I didn’t want to watch the Sex and the City movie on HBO for the umpteenth time ;-) the familiar title caught my attention and I began to watch…

Shaneiqua: I got into the life when I was 12 years old. I was still in middle school at the time. Ebony: I was 13; Martha: I was 14; Carolina: 16; Dominique: 13 1/2, going on 14; Kim: I started at the age of 13, and the sexploitation is like, at the age 13, what choices do I have?

As the documentary took me through the lives of Dominique, Carolina, Ebony, and many other girls, all I could do was cry because my heart broke with every story. These young women, even though repeatedly arrested for prostitution, were victims of kidnapping, abduction, rape and sex slavery. Many of them, with the help of the organization the documentary focused on, Girls Education & Mentoring Services (G.E.M.S), made it out of “The Life,” as they called it, and become thriving young women who used their experiences to help others or just went on to live normal lives. Dominique got married and got a job with G.E.M.S. Others like Ebony, stricken with the shame and guilt from “The Life” and brainwashed with the illusion of a love relationship between themselves and their pimps – well, they required a little more work.

But why am I telling you this? I could go off on the judicial system: a mother whose daughter had been reported missing for two months was sent home by the police to return another day, even though she had approached them with a tip about her daughter being seen with a pimp in a house with other girls; and on the sick, sick people out there who put these young children in these situations. But I will not. Neither will I want you to pity these girls – because I personally admire them. As of right now, I am not half not even 1/8 as strong as they are. Some of them convicted me on all the things I complain about. Can you imagine continuing to live even when you feel like the best thing that could happen to you is death? No, I can’t – I would not continue to live my life – I may have given up. So no, this is not about feeling sorry for these young women.

Then as I continued to watch I noticed that for the founder of G.E.M.S (a former victim) and the girls who survived then thrived, a belief in God was fundamental. At the end of the documentary, Dominique sang:

"I will sing Your praise; for You've done such a marvelous thingfor someone so wretched; yet my soul You have redeemed. No one else could do it; no one could care half as much; yet You thought my soul was worth it; so You gave Your only Son. You gave that I might live. You gave that I might be set free. Exchanged Your life for mine,what a marvelous thing You've done."

http://www.imeem.com/sistasoul1/music/_ZmjiQsI/walter-hawkins-marvelous/

I couldn’t believe it! Was she singing those words with all she had been through? Why wasn’t she blaming God for her troubled past like most people and denouncing Him? I have to say I was stunned. But it makes sense to me, you see the presence of God and the reality of the existence of a God is not equal to the absence of evil. Dominique knew that she was where she was today because something bigger than herself had gotten her there – she chose to believe that something was God.

There are two sides on the scale of good and evil, which means that in OUR world TODAY where a 40 year old man can beat a 14 year old girl close to death and leave her for dead, we have to tip the scale in the other direction. Dominique understands that God used people to tip the scale in her favor, so she gives Him the credit, but what about the rest of us? People do still do good without God – but since God is the source of ALL GOOD, and it is not out of obligation or moral superiority that people do good, there must exist of a Spirit of good which comes from a Source and a Force of Good.

In OUR world there are grown men who rape 5 year olds (as seen on Oprah), WE must tip the scale and increase the presence and the magnitude of the Spirit of God and Good. We must “be renewed by the transformation of our minds” because we have failed as a people without the Source. In a world where a mother allegedly drives drunk and high with her child and three nieces, we have failed to heal our own wounds. We have failed to fill the hole that needs to be filled by something fundamentally life-giving. We have failed to “love thy neighbor as thy self,” because we continue to kill and slight each other.

How does God love us? Unconditionally! When was the last time you loved unconditionally? Yet, He calls us to love one another as He loves us. We have failed to trust, we have failed to be honest in all aspects of our lives. WE ARE FAILING. YOU might be doing alright but ask Ebony, Dominique, Kim and the other girls and I bet they’d tell you life would be much better for them if their pimps lived by the Spirit of the law of God i.e. the heart of the message of the Bible -- LOVE.

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God and everyone that loves is born of God and knows God. He that loves not, knows not God, for God IS love.” (1 John 4:7-8)

Isn’t it that simple...?