What if YOUR Daughter Never returned Home?

We woke up a little late this morning. During the hurried rush to get everyone out the door at a reasonable time, I packed lunches; we prayed; and I kissed and hugged my daughters goodbye.

I will see them at 3:00pm when the last bell rings for their day of school.

But what if they didn't come home today?

What if in a split second of time one of them was taken?

Taken?

Every mother's nightmare.

Every loving father's fear.

To know that your little princess is gone.

But these days a greater fear lurks in a parent's heart.

It adds another question mark. It's not just ~
taken?

But taken ? Why?

We live in our little suburban bubbles.

Drive our SUVs to our sports games. We go to PTA meetings and pay our mortgages.

We are safe in our little bubble.

Across the ocean a half a world away in an African village, a mother kisses her 9 year old daughter as she sends her to the village market for a chicken. She doesn't know that is the last kiss she will ever give her.

As the little girl skips happily with a coin in her pocket, her innocent world collides with evil lust.

She is taken.

Not just a suburban kidnapping - which is horrific in its own right.

But taken.

Why?

The answer to that question is the evil that has been unraveling the moral fabric of every society since the days of Noah and before.

The sex slave trade.

What if YOUR daughter never returned home?


But what if YOUR daughter was taken to never return because she was TAKEN for the purpose of

satisfying

the evil

diabolical

lust and

desires

of sick

depraved

evil men.


What would YOU do?

But now the question is~ What WILL you do? What CAN you do?

You still have your daughter to kiss every night, to hold, to share your dreams with.
You will tuck her in bed tonight and kiss her forehead and fill her dreams with all the possibilities her future holds. Dreams off comfort, safety, and

innocence.

We live in our bubble.

They don't.

What WILL you do?

What CAN you do?

You can pray.
You can think outside your bubble.
You can support organizations that fight Human Trafficking.
You can make yourself aware that this evil atrocity does exist.

We can't just hide from evil because it doesn't affect us.

Human Trafficking is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world. The total annual revenue is estimated to be between 5 and 9 BILLION dollars. The United Nations estimates that nearly 2.5 MILLION people from 127 different countries are being trafficked around the world.

Sickening.

I still believe in the power of Prayer to the Almighty God of heaven and earth who created us in His image.
I believe in the power of DOING good.

Isaiah 61:8 says, "For the LORD love justice; I hate robbery and wrong; I will fiathfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them."

Psalm 68:5 (He is ) "Father of the fatherless and protector of widows..."


blessings,
dorinda

Women Addicted

Here is an article I received from the Assemblies of God news source. I want to share this with those who read my blog.

 

Ladies, we need boundaries in all areas of our lives.

 

My heart is heavy to know that so many women are struggling and have such low self-esteem.

 

Read on:

 

 

**WOMEN ADDICTED TO PORN: SITES ARE NO LONGER ATTRACTING JUST MEN

 

It¹s an old, familiar story. The onlooker lusts over an athletic, good-looking figure, seeing the naked image on the screen only as a sex object. But the clientele of Internet pornography has shifted:

women now are doing a lot of the leering. It turns out that sex addiction isn¹t gender-specific. However, the result is the same:

relationships are harmed, sometimes beyond repair.

 

³This is a rather new phenomenon,² says Rick Schatz, president of the Cincinnati-based National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families. "Until five years ago, the coalition believed 98 percent of those looking at pornography were men. But because of the messages of the sexualized culture being delivered, especially to young women, we find about 40 percent of those struggling with sexual addiction under the age of 35 are women.²

 

TopTenReviews reports that one out of three viewers of porn sites is female and one in six women struggles with porn addiction.

 

³Society has gone several steps beyond the pale in overt expressions of sexuality,² says Marnie C. Ferree, director of Bethesda Workshops in Nashville, Tennessee. ³People feel they have license to act out because it¹s not against social mores. Only church people are saying that it¹s wrong.²

 

Insecurities many women have about their body shape create a key factor as to why more women are viewing porn, according to Ferree, 53.

 

³Sexual addiction is really an intimacy disorder,² says Johna Hale, a woman in her 60s who has been married five times ‹ the first four times, she says, to fellow addicts. ³A woman looking at men ‹ or women ‹ in porn increases her inability to connect emotionally or spiritually with others.²

 

³Teenage girls and young women say one reason they look at Internet porn is to learn what is Œexpected¹ by males,² says Schatz, 65.

 

Until the early 1990s, four out of five women addicted to porn had been sexually abused in childhood, according to Ferree. But the availability and anonymity of porn on the Internet has resulted in the possibility of anyone with self-esteem problems or relationship difficulties being vulnerable, she says.

 

Many women who look at porn with a partner either are hoping to learn what pleases him or are hoping to keep the companion from leaving the relationship. Such tryouts may be enough to get them hooked.

 

OUT OF CONTROL

 

That¹s what happened to Cyndi. She started watching porn at 24 to learn ³new techniques² to try to please a more experienced boyfriend.

 

³I didn¹t want to appear stupid or boring or backwards to him,² says Cyndi, who lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee. ³But after I watched it, I really liked it.²

 

So Cyndi began voraciously viewing pornography on videos, computer and cable television. Soon she looked at porn as a means of coping with anger, loneliness and hatred. She had been sexually abused by a male relative as a child and raped as a teenager.

 

³I felt dirty and ashamed, but I kept going back to it,² says Cyndi, now 40. ³I don¹t understand why I did it. But I wish I had never seen those images. I can¹t get them from my mind.²

 

Cyndi says her addiction to porn altered her behavior. She became promiscuous. She shut down emotionally. She viewed God only as a punisher.

 

In 2006, at the end of her rope emotionally and financially, Cyndi sought help from a church when she didn¹t have enough food for her 9-year-old son. She found compassion rather than condemnation, and counseling helped her begin healing from a twisted perspective of sexuality. Last year she stopped her 15-year porn compulsion, helped by Internet filter controls, an accountability partner and a support group.

 

³There¹s no way anybody can fully recover without Jesus in their heart,² Cyndi says. ³There¹s a lot of shame. Women aren¹t supposed to like porn.²

 

MEDIA INFLUENCE

 

Yet for college-age women and even girls in high school, Internet pornography almost has become a norm.

 

A lure to porn can begin via a soap opera, romance novel, fashion magazine, chat room or social networking site.

 

Wanton women are celebrated heroines on television, in programs such as "Desperate Housewives." Females who become obsessed with porn may be desensitized by watching shows such as "Sex and the City," which offer subtle messages that highly educated characters shouldn¹t have any hang-ups about premarital or extramarital sex.

 

UNHEALTHY MANIFESTATIONS

 

³From a Christian perspective, it¹s sin,² Schatz says. ³Those who look at porn bring other people into sexual relationships.²

 

While many men keep their pornography addiction a secret, women are more likely to act out beyond visualization, Ferree says. In an effort to find a perfect relationship they have conjured up in a fantasy world, women may:

€ Dress provocatively to attract attention € Track down former partners via social networking sites € Meet in person those with whom they have formed an online connection € Experiment with lesbianism € Commit adultery

 

³The more a person dwells on fantasies in the mind, it¹s only a matter of time before she starts acting out,² says Rose Colón, a counselor at Pure Life Ministries in Dry Ridge, Kentucky.

 

Addiction also arrests emotional development.

 

³When a person becomes compulsive about this behavior ‹ which for many people now is mid- to late-teens ‹ their maturation process stops at that point,² Ferree says. Thus, some women in their mid-20s date teenage boys because they see them as peers.

 

STIGMA AT CHURCH

 

Experts agree that churches these days usually applaud men for seeking help with sex addiction problems. Not so with women.

 

³The stigma and shame is far greater for women who struggle,² Ferree says.

 

Because of that, many won¹t seek help until the addiction spirals out of control.

 

Starting when Ferree was age 5, a trusted family friend molested her for 15 years. As an adult, Ferree went through a series of sexual relationships and believed she couldn¹t be redeemed. Ferree couldn¹t break her sexual addiction even after being diagnosed with cervical cancer (caused by a sexually transmitted disease) and enduring three surgeries and increasingly frequent suicidal thoughts.

 

Only when she learned that a former partner had died of AIDS did Ferree seek successful treatment from a Christian counselor who understood sexual addiction. She also joined a 12-step support group. Bethesda Workshops, where Ferree is director, began offering the first treatment program specifically for women in 1997.

 

³By and large it¹s a secretive, isolating disease,² says Hale, founder and executive director of L.I.F.E. (Living in Freedom

Everyday) Ministries, a Christian sexual addiction recovery support group ministry in Lake Mary, Florida. ³Women are dealing with rejection, abandonment and shame.²

 

FINDING HELP

 

The greatest power pornography has is its secrecy. Reaching out for assistance can be mortifying for a woman active in church.

 

Ferree says while confession to God is an important initial step toward freedom, accountability to another Christian is usually necessary to stop inappropriate sexual behavior.

 

³No woman can recover alone,² Ferree says. ³I hear a lot of women saying, ŒI thought I was the only one.¹ When they believe they are uniquely perverted, it¹s hard for them to talk.²

 

Ideally, that initial contact to confide the secret should be another woman who is a trusted friend. An addiction recovery accountability support group and individual counseling also may be beneficial.

 

With God¹s help, wives can stop trying to medicate past traumas and can become vulnerable, transparent and trustworthy in a marital relationship. Without hope, it¹s not uncommon for a woman to move from relationship to relationship ‹ and sometimes marriage to marriage ‹ in an attempt to find fulfillment.

 

Despite the reservations in Christian circles about discussing women addicted to porn, there is progress. For instance, when Ferree wrote "No Stones: Women Redeemed from Sexual Shame" in 2002, she had to publish it herself; no Christian company wanted to touch it. In March, InterVarsity Press will release an updated version.

 

Colón, citing Jesus¹ conversations with the woman caught in adultery (John 8:11) and the woman at the well with five husbands (John 4:18), notes that the Savior offers hope to women caught in sexual sin.

 

³Women in sexual sin are afraid to come into the light because they don¹t want to be labeled,² Colón says. ³The enemy tells us, ŒYou can¹t tell anyone that. What are they going to think?¹ But when women take a step of faith, they already have started on the pathway to freedom.²

 

--John W. Kennedy, Pentecostal Evangel

 

 

What sobering information! But we have the answer in Jesus Christ!!

 

Blessings!

dorinda

In the Pit

If the stench was awful at first, it was now elevated to toxic levels that burned his lungs and scorched his nostrils with every breath.

Putrid, rotten, horrid filth.
His taste buds were beginning to absorb the fumes.

The pit he had been thrown into was the crude sewer system for his city.

The last few days his existence had consisted of avoiding the rodents scavenging through the human waste and of discerning where the most sanitary and safe place would be to rest.

He heard the far gate open again and before the smell hit him his stomach muscles began repulsing in anticipation of the "fresh" smells that would be assailing him momentarily.

Where was God?
Had he, Jeremiah, not delivered the Word of the Lord word for word as Jehovah had directed him?

To keep his sanity he forced his nostrils and taste buds to shut down and he closed his eyes to remember happier times.

He remembered King Josiah and the happy days when the Book of the Law was found. He remembered Josiah encouraging the people to follow after God.

Those were the days. He, Jeremiah had open access to the palace in Jerusalem. He was a young man in those days, but God had been gracious to him to allow him to see and experience the reading of the Law. He had seen the joy the words of the Torah could bring to his people.

But now.....

It was as if his people, his new king were no different than Jeremiah. Oh, they weren't in a pit filled with feces and rodents, but their spirits were in a worse pit than his.

His people, God's chosen people, rejected to word of the LORD continually. The more they refused to heed the warnings of the LORD, the more they sunk into the mire and filth of the depravity of their souls.

As if on cue, the "fresh" wave of nauseating stench flooded his sense of smell.

Bile and vomit welled up within his stomach and throat, but it had been so long since he had eaten there was nothing but acidic spittle wreaking havoc in his dehydrated body.

Once again he recounted the words of his God to him. It brought some sort of peace to his soul and a comfort to his misery to know that his suffering was serving a purpose.

He remembered hearing, feeling the breath of God speak to him: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."

He smiled a faint smile as he remembered his confusion at: "Get yourself ready. Stand up and say to them whatever I command you. Do not be terrified by them, or I will terrify you before them."

His parched lips, thirsty for water and moisture, mouthed the words of his favorite: "For I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

These were words his God, the Creator of the Universe, gave him to speak to the nations! If God were detailed as he believed he was, then these words would be around for hundreds of thousands of years.

At this moment, Jeremiah gave every effort to concentrate on a particular promise he would dwell on all day: "When you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you and will bring you back from captivity."

Just maybe, that word could be for him today! Jeremiah determined in hes heart to seek and find the Lord God this day! It didn't matter that he was in a pit, that he was dying, or that he didn't have the life he once did. It only mattered that he seek his God today~ THIS day!

As he contemplated the greatness and goodness of God, he heard a voice shouting out.

His heart pounded a little faster when he heard his name! It was his name! Someone had come for him!

He, Jeremiah, the prophet, was about to BE FREE!!!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~``

May you dwell on the promises of God today, regardless of your circumstance~!

blessings,
dorinda

The Enemy's Weapon

The devil is a liar and the father of them.

Deception originated with Lucifer.

He paints a picture and we fall into his trap.

We see the world around us sometimes the way the ENEMY wants us to see it.

We easily turn from the TRUTH that Christ is longing for us to see.

Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life."

Jesus said, "I have come to give you life and more abundantly."

It is the devil who comes to steal, kill and destroy.

My sister-in-law sent me an email this morning that depicts TRUTH for all of us- not just policiticans in the joke's jest.

Please read and ask God to speak TRUTH into your soul- AS you read His TRUTH in HIS WORD. I encourage you to read John 8 and Johm 15 today.

Here is the little email joke that was sent to me:

While walking down the street one day a US senator is tragically hit by a truck and dies. His soul arrives in heaven and is met by St. Peter at the entrance. 'Welcome to heaven,' says St. Peter. 'Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a high official around these parts, you see, so we're not sure what to do with you.' 'No problem, just let me in,' says the man. 'Well, I'd like to, but I have orders from higher up. What we'll do is have you spend one day in hell and one in heaven. Then you can choose where to spend eternity.' 'Really, I've made up my mind. I want to be in heaven,' says the senator. 'I'm sorry, but we have our rules.' And with that, St. Peter escort s him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell.. The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a green golf course. In the distance is a clubhouse and standing in front of it are all his friends and other politicians who had worked with him. Everyone is very happy and in evening dress. They run to greet him, shake his hand, and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at the expense of the people. They play a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster, caviar and champagne. Also present is the devil, who really is a very friendly & nice guy who has a good time dancing and telling jokes. They are having such a good time that before he realizes it, it is time to go. Everyone gives him a hearty farewell and waves while the elevator rises... The elevator goes up, up, up and the door reopens on heaven where St. Peter is waiting for him. 'Now it's time to visit heaven.' So, 24 hours pass with the senator joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp and singing. They have a good time and, before he realizes it, the 24 hours have gone by and St. Peter returns. 'Well, then, you've spent a day in hell and another in heaven. Now choose your eternity.' The senator reflects for a minute, then he answers: 'Well, I would never have said it before, I mean heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in hell.' So St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell. Now the doors of the elevator open and he's in the middle of a barren land covered with waste and garbage. He sees all his friends, dressed in rags, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags as more trash falls from above. The devil comes over to him and puts his arm around his shoulder. 'I don't understand,' stammers the senator. 'Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and clubhouse, and we ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne, and danced and had a great time. Now there's just a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable. What happened? The devil looks at him, smiles and says, 'Yesterday we were campaigning.. Today you voted.'