As the summer camp season ends, I feel a shift in my heart.
For the last six years, I’ve felt a calling to share with students how God has set me free from the shame and actions of my past, and that they aren’t alone (because they truly believe they are). One college dean referred to me as “the grenade we’re tossing into our student body to get the conversation of sex started” because they realized how sweeping these topics under the rug caused their students to live trapped and addicted and ashamed. I will continue sharing my testimony in that capacity as long as there is a student in front of me that needs to hear it.
However, I am more aware now than ever before in my ministry of how little parents know about what’s happening. And because I’m not a parent, I feel terribly inadequate in telling you this.
But I can’t not tell you.
After seeing the innocence in the eyes of 10-year-olds who’ve carried secrets nobody, let alone a child, should carry; after hearing some of the most horrific accounts from students I’ve ever heard this year; I cannot go one more day without pleading with you to open up and have these difficult conversations with your children.
Would you prefer your son or daughter learn what a “fetish” is from you or from searching Google Images? Talk to them about abuse and, yes, even trafficking.
Just this month, I met a relative of a girl whose own mother was selling her body from the time she was five until now, when she’s 16. This was not in some drug-infested ghetto. It was in a very upscale town in a very upscale state known for its nature and beauty and summer houses.
Your children need to know.
If not for them, maybe for a friend. Maybe they can help bring context or see warning signs.
Ask them what they know.
Ask them what they’ve done.
Ask them what’s been done to them.
Show grace and love. Stay far away from judgment and condemnation. If you feel ill equipped, ask a pastor or counselor for help. If you hear an answer you didn’t expect and your first instinct is to dismiss it—don’t.
Find a counselor. Look for resources. Continue following up.
If you struggle with this (and let’s admit it, statistically, a lot of us do), get help too.
Do the right thing, the hard thing, for the sake of your children. If we don’t do this now, I am terrified of how the enemy will continue stealing hope and joy from our youngest generation, and how they’ll be paralyzed to advance the Kingdom of God as they mature.
We cannot let this happen on our watch.
*Specific details that could identify children have been changed in such a way that it does not affect the story and only protects the children. Mandatory Reporters reported confessions that involved abuse or neglect or situations that indicated a child was in any type of danger by using proper state laws and procedures.
