What It Means To Be Blessed

What It Means to Be Blessed

When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required.

Luke 12:48

A few days ago, I found myself engaged in a deep conversation with my daughter about what it means to be blessed. We spoke of Queen Esther, the woman whose stunning beauty put her in the king’s palace at the precise moment necessary to save her people from slaughter because of her deep faith and courage to speak up when the time was right. Turning to the New Testament, we discussed the scriptural concept that significant responsibility accompanies the resources, talents, and gifts God has given us. The greater our gifts, the greater our responsibility to use those gifts to further God’s Kingdom.

Those were the words bouncing around in my head a few days later as I read about unthinkably young girls being raped by rebel soldiers halfway around the world. And those were the words that pounded in tandem with my rapidly beating heart as I read of minor girls being sex-trafficked in the heart of my own community.

If you are a woman and a citizen of the United States, then you are a part of the tiny percentage of women who have more freedom, more power, and more of a voice than any other group of women in the history of the world. You and I are among the most blessed of any generation of women ever.

In light of these historical and global perspectives on blessing, the real question is this: since we have received and been entrusted with much in the way of freedoms and resources, what is required of us in return? What is our obligation to our sisters half a world (or three blocks) away who have no voice, whose bodies and souls are being mistreated in indescribable ways?

What are we called to do, in this moment, with our great blessing of freedom, of voice, of financial resources? Friends, we are the Esthers in this story and of this time. We must show the same courage and faith to speak up, to stand up, to step up at such a time as this.

—Julie

— Today’s Act of Kindness —

Choose one way to help victims of sex trafficking. You could volunteer with a local organization that fights trafficking or make a purchase from a company that employs women who have been victims.