If you haven't, you need to read about it. It's a watershed moment for the future of our girls on this earth.
If you've read up on it, you can't help but feel overwhelmed with emotion. As a woman and a mother of a daughter, the thought of living through this nightmare is other-wordly. I feel that many of us are looking around, hopeless, wondering where is the help? Who sees these girls? When will their rescue come?
I have prayed and cried and prayed some more for their release, comfort, healing and protection. When the list of their names was released, I poured over the sweet words printed on my screen, knowing that each two word statement was attached to a real and living beautiful girl. A girl with purpose. A girl who shouldn't be denied a future solely on the fact that she was born a life giver.
I told my children a brief story about them, wanting them to know, yes, even at this young age, that evil is here, and yet we do not have to fear. I watched Ivy take in the information, I saw my boys light up in anger as they longed to 'go after the bad guys'. As the conversation turned and my boys moved on to boy things and found space to play again, Ivy came up beside me. She was grieved and I wanted to address it. I told her that it was so very sad, but that I had been praying, and if she wanted to, we could choose a name together, and adopt our own Nigerian girl to cover in prayer. She can't yet read but looked at my screen at all the names lined up neatly, the order that belies the chaos they are living even now. She took her delicate and dusty child finger and pointed. Pointed at Saratu Emmanuel. I breathed her name out. Saratu. Emmanuel. Her name Saratu means 'An agreement' and the name Emmanuel means 'God with us'. I reached for Ivy's hand and she laid her head on my shoulder. I started a simple prayer asking for protection, release, freedom, and as the words came, so did the tears. But the tears started in Ivy. She whispered, 'God, bring her back to her Mom. She's my sister.'
I am quite sure that in that moment, that holy moment where shoes are off and hearts are torn and we stand as helpless watchers a million miles away that the truth of her sisterhood with this dear Saratu could not have been more real. I broke off in prayer and sat in the moment of sacred space carved into the plainness of everyday. I looked at my daughter, the one who still sits on my lap and sleeps a few arms length away each night and told her "Never forget that your prayers have power. Never forget these girls. Never forget that you can always pray and act and cry for the ones who have been taken." She nodded solemnly and asked me to promise that we would pray again before bed. I assured her that we would.
The hole in my chest is nothing compared to the ripping that is happening in mothers there. The grief I feel for the stolen children who are being consumed for their womanhood is light in comparison to the weight that these mothers must bear.
Like so many of you, I long to do more, and I come across Ann Voskamp's blog post about the issue. She has a way of writing that will slice into your soul and pull out what needs attention, and as I read, the tears poured. She spoke of the travesty of the devaluing of women all across the globe. She reminded me that while the situation in Nigeria is desperate, sadly, it is all too common. She shared statistics that will baffle your mind and shred your heart. But she didn't write it to create emotion without solution. She wrote it with the intent to stir you to action and get you involved with the Esther Initiative. A plan for women to empower women by telling them that God sees them and values them.
In a world where so many girls are denied education because of their gender, many also have no idea how valuable they are. Hearing the stories of God loving women is a powerful way to bring identity to many who have never been thought of as anything other than disposable.
When our worth as girls, as women, is dropped to a few dollars or a moment of sexual gratification by a man or even the ability to carry a child, we miss the truth that our worth comes at the cost of God himself.
This is a moment for the world to turn and see that girls are being treated as commodities all over this earth- even here on our soil. For us to take notice of the stolen girls from our neighborhoods, our schools, our country, as well as the ones who are missing in Nigeria. At the end of the day each of us are the same. We all want to be loved, to be safe, to be treated as the miracle we are, and yet so many girls go to their grave in disgrace, being consumed and discarded as though they matter not.
Please read her post, please, if you pray- pick a name and pray. It feels inconsequential, and yet there is power there. Say their names. Don't let the stolen girls become the forever lost girls. Do what you can where you are. Notice the ways you can value the girls in your life. The ways you can bring truth and love into your own life. It matters. Each one of us matters. #BringBackOurGirls
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