Taboo Topic?

It was all over the news today. A sex trafficking ring busted and 105 victims rescued, one was just nine years old.

I haven't done a lot of reading on it. I can't really bring myself to just right now. Sometimes the evil side of humanity is just too hideous and I have to turn my eyes aside until I have the inner strength to look it in the face.

This all leaves me wondering, though. What will happen with these girls? What does their future look like? Where does healing even begin?

But you don't have to have sold your body and your soul for money to find yourself crushed in spirit and emotionally damaged beyond recognition. It happens all the time. I've seen all sorts of statistics but they seem to run between 1/4 and 1/3 of females will have experienced some sort of sexual abuse by the time they are 18.

That means that perhaps one in three women make it to adulthood with a totally skewed view of their own worth and a totally twisted view of sex itself.

Even for those who have not suffered at the hands of an abuser, sex is such a confusing and emotionally and spiritually charged topic. The current culture spills forth lies by the fistfull. Good is bad and bad is good and we find ourselves drowning in a toxic stew of expectations and perversions.

It seems like sexual brokenness is everywhere. We just don't talk about it. For far too long the church has just sort of ignored the topic as best it can, until it is forced to deal with the issue. I don't think any of us needs another lecture on God's original intent for sex or another spin through the quasi-erotic Song of Solomon. It is more a matter of how . . .  how . . . HOW do we get from Point A to Point B?

I pray that these 105 girls will receive the care and counsel and healing that they need. I hope that the best of the best are there to care for them through the next years as they grow through adolescence and into adulthood and all that that entails. May none of them fall through the cracks.

But what about the rest of us? Now I haven't done a whole lot of reading in the marriage book department (finding them only slightly more helpful than parenting books, which I consider the scourge of the earth), but the ones I have read never ever seem to even touch on sexual brokenness. What a totally bizarre disconnect and a huge disservice to women, and to the men who love them.

I have a friend who has just started blogging about the horrific abuse she suffered at the hands of several family members. I see this as powerfully healing, not only as an outlet and a way for her to put her pain into words, but for those who read her story and know they are not alone.

I think it is time to talk.

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