God's Heart and Mine

God has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted (Isaiah 61:1)! What an awesome privilege, right?

Well, how could I even think of doing this when my heart wasn’t even healed from certain things. Is it possible to minister to people and expect them change in areas that you are still working through? I guess you really can because it is through those times of being weak that God is strong. But I will admit that it was hard for me to say to girls that God has perfect plans for them and that they need to trust Him for absolutely everything when I, myself, was doubting these very things. I just sounded so sure of myself when I would speak to people but inside I was torn.

I began a few weeks ago to see how my heart was becoming hardened to certain things. I had begun shifting to working more full time with Justice Acts and although I know that this is what God wants me to do I wasn’t fully prepared for the shock to my system.

For those of you who don’t know, Justice Acts is an organization who is fighting human trafficking in the Western Cape of South Africa. With the World Cup coming to South Africa there is an increasing amount of people being trafficked into the large cities for prostitution or slave labor. I am working with them to start a safe house for some of these under aged girls that will be brought in for next year. We are hoping to have it up and running by next year May, Lord willing. There is a lot to say about it but I will save that for my next blog.

Well, as I begun to work with Justice Acts, doing presentations and attending other meetings, I felt something shifting in my heart. As I was constantly being bombarded by stories from trafficked girls about their families that sold them, pimps, or the men that bought them, I found it very hard to keep God’s heart of love inside me. I know in my head that God loves these family members, pimps, and buyers just as much as He loves you and I and His heart breaks for them. But I found myself almost loathing them. I was closing my heart to them. I had stopped believing that God had perfect plans for them as well even though they had turned their backs on Him.

God really confronted me on this and I saw where it would lead me. If I let this hatred in where would it stop? Would it lead to shutting out all men because of the ones that I see in these stories? I really felt like that was how my heart would end up. It scared me so bad and I had to cry out to God. I have traveled half way around the world to comfort the brokenhearted and here I was shutting out some of the most hurt ones. If I can watch drug dealers and gang members come to the Lord what’s to stop pimps and sex addicts? It took me quite a few days to overcome the feelings that had entered my heart and have God completely transform it again. In fact I am still dealing with it daily.

But you know the amazing thing about God is that He does it! He used not only times between just Him and me but He used friends to change my heart when really none of them knew what was going on inside of me. I love the way my God works!
Psalm 103.