Heartbroken

I'm not gonna lie. Sometimes the sin of the world is just so overwhelming...

I've been following an organization called Women at Risk International who try to rescue women and children from the sex trade industry all over the world. They help the women in so many ways, including counseling, bringing them to a safe house, and training them various trades so they can make a living, and reaching out with the gospel of Christ. The stuff that these women and children are going through all over the world is appalling, and disgusting, and heart-shattering. The fact that people are so eager to sleep with prostitutes and abuse children and treat them in such a horrendous way is overwhelming to me. The fact that some many people are kidnapped and used at big sporting events including the Superbowl is crazy. And the fact that there are so many sex slave trading strongholds even in America is horrific.

Well, anyway, today at the Women at Risk facebook page, they posted this article about the devastating truth behind the porn industry, siting a webpage of a former porn actress, Shelley Lubben, who has since come to know Christ, gone through massive counseling and had help in dealing with the trauma of the sex industry. Since 2002 she has been reaching out to others in the porn industry and people who struggle with porn-addiction, showing them the true effects of the industry and sharing Christ with them. Here website and the stats below can be found here: http://www.shelleylubben.com/

Porn Industry Statistics ( www.shelleylubben.com/)

36 porn stars died that we know of from HIV, suicide, homicide and drugs between 2007 and 2010.

66% of porn performers have Herpes, a non-curable disease.

2,396 cases of Chlamydia and 1,389 cases of Gonorrhea reported among performers since 2004.

Over 100 straight and gay performers died from AIDS.

26 cases of HIV reported by Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation (AIM), since 2004.

70% of sexually transmitted infections in the porn industry occur in females according to County of Los Angeles Public Health.

Chlamydia and Gonorrhea among performers is 10x greater than that of LA County 20-24 year olds.

The largest group viewing online pornography is ages 12 to 17.

More than 11 million teens regularly view porn online.

There are 4.2 million pornographic websites, 420 million pornographic web pages, and 68 million daily search engine requests.

50% of men and 20% of women in the church regularly view porn.

Of 1351 pastors surveyed, 54% had viewed Internet pornography within the last year.

Of all known child abuse domains, 48 percent are housed in the United States.

At the 2003 meeting of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, a gathering of the nation’s divorce lawyers, attendees revealed that 58% of their divorces were a result of a spouse looking at excessive amounts of pornography online.

Child pornography is one of the fastest growing businesses online, and the content is becoming much worse. In 2008, Internet Watch Foundation found 1,536 individual child abuse domains.

Worldwide pornography revenue in 2006 was $97.06 billion. Of that, approximately $13 billion was in the United States.

It breaks my heart. Sin is so ugly and dark and sometimes I think we forget that Satan is working hard to destroy lives... I am so thankful to God who is so much more powerful and loving and is bringing people to him everyday and breaking the chains of bondage to this sin.

If you or someone you know struggles with porn addiction or sex addiction, a good resource to check out is Setting Captives Free (http://www.settingcaptivesfree.com/).

Drifting Away

I was listening to this song today called "Drifting Away" by Tal & Acacia. I hadn't listened to their music in awhile, but God brought the song to mind today.

And it got me thinking...

Why is it so easy for us to drift away from God? Things go well and we forget him? Things fall apart and we forget him? Why do we try to fix the problem ourselves and think we don't need God? Or if things are going well, why do we take all of the credit for ourselves? That's crazy!

I don't want to be that way. I know it's because of our sinful nature, but I don't want to be that way. I don't want to play the 'Christian' game that so many of us are playing where we pretend all is well at church and yet spend our time getting drunk, or swearing up a storm, or lying, or sleeping around, or living in habitual sin, etc, and not caring. We all struggle with sin, but do we care? Do we really understand the bondage we're in and our search for something to satisfy? Do we realize that satisfaction can only be found in Christ?

I don't want to drift away from God just because I can't be bothered to think of him and all he has done for me. I mean, seriously, how can we forget God? He created this world that we spend all of our time in. He created out bodies, our minds, our skills, everything. It's like we wake up each morning and willfully forget God. Then later, we lay down to sleep and realize that we haven't even thought of God today and vow to do better tomorrow. As each day goes by like this, we begin to forget to even feel bad about it. And we drift away, into our own thoughts, actions and abilities, and life, thinking we have it all together. That is, until something comes along to knock us down. Thank God he cares enough to knock us down. He cares enough to get our attention so we will turn back to him and realize that life isn't really about this life.

I don't pretend that I am perfect, for I am very much not, and I don't pretend to have it all figured out. What I do know is that we HAVE to spend time in relationship with God. Not for homework, or a checklist of 'good Christianity' but because we NEED God. There are so many lies thrown around out there in the world. How are we going to seperate the truth from the lies? How is God going to transform our lives and make us more like him? How are we going to live in freedom and be that bright beacon of light in a dark world for others?

Food for thought...


"His love is the thing that made it begin for the first time.
And his love set it right to keep us goin' on.
But we keep drifting away,from the love that makes life.
We keep drifting away from his side."

You know what? I've been lazy in blogging for sometime now. Usually I post a song, or video or excerpt from a book instead of writing much about myself and what's going on. What's the deal? I have heaps of time on my hands, I just use it doing something else.

That's gotta change.

Let's start with this.

I am a writer. I love writing music, short stories, and short film. As of late, I haven't done much except for writing music. While that's pretty good, I need to do more. Just recently, I've found a few friends who also share this interest in writing. We need to encourage and challenge each other. Hmm.

I like to learn new things. The past few weeks I've been learning to crochet. It's fun. My first project was to make a scarf. It turned out well. Now I'm working with a difficult yarn and making a baby blanket for one of my twin nephews who's on the way while my sis makes one for the other one. It's slow going, but not AS slow as I thought. ;)

That's good for today. Sweet and short. Cheers!