Golden Handcuffs

Hebrews 13:3

Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them;
and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.

 
Recently (like in the past week) I have heard many stories from young women and girls that has broken my heart. For the past several years, I have had a burden for the girls and young women of my generation as well as the generation coming up behind me. But lately, I have been nearly bombarded by heartwrenching, true-life stories from all over this country that has reminded me of the great need all around us. Last week, I literally sat on my couch in tears after hearing of girls trapped in prostitution, some even being forced by their own parents to pursue such a dark and horrific lifestyle. I heard of girls as young as 13 engaging in premartital sex and trying (yes, trying) to get pregnant, and my heart has broken over and over again seeing the hopelessness and the helplessness of some, and then the total blindness of others.

What do you say to girls like this?

What do you say at all?

How are we supposed to feel when we look into the eyes of a young 15 year old girl who justifies all her choices in life because she "just wants to be happy." What are we to think? How are we to help?

To begin, I think that it is time to wake up! It's time to open our eyes and see what is going on in the world of young girls and women today. It's time to see the recklessness, the waste, the depravity, the loss and, above all, the lack of Jesus Christ - and then DO something about it!

Hearing stories of young women who are trapped in prostitution, wanting to get out, but being afraid for their life to do so should break our hearts and give us a burden to reach out and rescue them from the world they are forced to live in. Hearing stories of young teenage girls, barely old enough to get a learner's permit, getting drunk and getting pregnant should shake us to our core and fuel a desire to extend a hand and help them. They are bound by what I call "golden handcuffs." They are in prison, but their chains look dazzling. So they stay. They are bound, but their bonds are gold....so they remain bound by their own free will. However, there will come a time in every complacent prisoner's life when they awake to the realization that they are actually in torment; that their life is empty. And most, when they see their life for what it is and has become, are so deep in their pit that they don't even try to get out. So they spend their life, remaining in chains...convinced that their life could never be fulfilling; convinced that they have lost all hope of happiness.

They need to be reached!

They need to be helped!

Please pray with me for the countless girls and young women who are lost, lonely, and in need of an advocate; in need of hope; in need of Jesus. And if we are the body of Christ....then don't you think we need to be demonstrating His love and rescuing power?


Matthew 10:6a
But go rather to the lost sheep...

Luke 19:10
For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.

2 Corinthians 4:3
But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: