Some years ago, I remember laying down for a nap on a Sunday afternoon and waking to an interview with Linda Smith, founder of Shared Hope International. What she was talking about really gripped my heart as she described meeting some girls in India who had been sold into sexual slavery. The girls she met with had recently trusted in Christ as Savior but were still enslaved in some abominable conditions. It was these kinds of girls that Shared Hope seeks to rescue from the slavery they have been sold into. As Mrs. Smith described how freely these girls worshipped God — even in the brothel where they didn’t even have anything of their own, not even their dignity — it changed everything about how I view the comparatively minor things I have to deal with.
I subscribed to the Shared Hope Newsletter, and the very first one I got, featured a picture of a young woman who had been rescued from one of these Indian brothels and was wearing a beautiful white wedding dress standing next to a handsome young man who was now her husband.
In one of those unforgettable convergences that only God can arrange, the following Sunday morning, the pastor spoke about Ephesians 5:25-27.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
As he started to talk about how it was as if God, out of the cesspool of human civilization, had taken a young lady from one of these brothels, cleaned her, given her new clothes, and now presents her to himself as his bride as a chaste virgin, I literally had a picture of exactly what he was talking about in my mind. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that picture. Every time I read those verses again, I have a picture in my mind of a young lady who has seen depths of human depravity that I will never know standing clean and pure with her husband on their wedding day. It reminds me of the end of the story — the day every believer in Christ is looking forward to:
And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of might thunderings saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.
Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself read.
And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.
And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.
Bonus: Human trafficking and sexual slavery was still a relatively unknown issue when I first heard the interview with Linda Smith. Her organization and others like it have made a great deal of progress in bringing these things into the spotlight. If you think slavery in this country ended with the Civil War, think again.
