Jerri Phillips

I feel like I took a flying leap off the side of a mountain, and if it were not for trusting God so much, I think I would throw up.


Actually, jumping off mountains solo isn't such a big deal anymore. I've become pretty accustomed to that. It's jumping tandem that leaves me reeling, especially when the one tethered to me is my daughter...especially when she is standing on the precipice ready to go over the edge and God says, "I made her to fly. Let her go."


She looks at me questioning. I nod.


Off she goes.


I am right with her, as though a mother's heart could be anywhere else.


And now we are flying in what feels like a free fall, out of control.


Out of my control.


My last illusion of control went flying over the edge with us, and right now, I'm not enjoying the flight. Right now, I hate this. Right now, one thought goes through my mind: "God, what have I done?"


I know the answer. What I have done is release my daughter from my safety zone to God's infinite possibilities. What I have done is declare that I believe His thoughts are higher than my thoughts and His ways are above my ways...and He can do amazing things...through my adolescent daughter...HIS daughter.


I keep tripping over that.


HIS daughter. His creation. His solution to a world in need. His answer to girls caught in a life of slavery and hopelessness. His chosen one.


Right now, though, my mother's heart is struggling. Right now it is concerned about my life, my comfort zone, my life status quo, my family...my own personal Rockwellian view of family life.


But Norman Rockwell was an illusionist. He had a gift for making life's tough spots look poetic, but life isn't poetry, not the kind with perfect metre and comforting rhymes. Life is messy. Healing is done with tears, not smiles. Families in perfect clothes at the perfect table for the perfect holiday spill things...drinks, soups, and souls.


It's in the mess and the spills that the connections occur. A touch of the hand when wiping up the tea. Arms wrapped round to dry the tears. Hearts laid bare as souls are tended.


It is into this mess that my daughter chooses to walk, into the world of young girls captured into a hellish nightmare of human slavery, children sold to grown men to fulfill a wife's place. She, too, is captured...by the hope of freedom for every child who feels hopeless. She is determined to be their hope. She is determined to be the light in their darkness and to find them in their prisons and set them free.


She can do it. Maybe not alone, but people have good hearts. They just need someone to tell them about these children and give them the chance to help. And she will.


What exactly that means for my personalized Rockwell picture, I don't know, but while my mother's heart is screaming, "What have I done?", my faith answers, "I've given her the freedom she wants to give these children...the freedom to be an answer, to be a blessing, to live big, to serve God in whatever way He leads. I've given her the freedom to fly."




To find out more about how you can help set children free from the nightmare of human trafficking and sex slave trade, please visit AMPED Red Light Rescue, Sowers of the Seed Inernational, or contact me personally. Thank you.