Isaiah 11:6-9
“The wolf shall live with the lamb;
the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the lion will feed together,
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.”
The last few years I lived in New York City, I worked for an anti-trafficking agency called Restore NYC. We provided housing, case management, and counseling for foreign national survivors of sex trafficking. In my small therapy office overlooking 46th Street, I sat with young women time and time again who had experienced what I consider to be the most violent and destructive acts one human can do to another.
My mentor likes to say that therapists need to have one foot rooted wherever our clients are, often in these cases the land of death and desperation, while keeping the other foot firmly planted in the land of living hope. Sometimes, the most important thing I could do for my clients was hold hope for them that this was not the end of their story. And yet, holding onto hope is sometimes the hardest part of what I do.
On days like today, the eve of an important election that will impact the welfare of many of these former clients, I’m tempted to feel that hope is just too out of reach. On days like today, I find myself coming back to the same source of hope that I’ve turned to time and time again to ground me, center me, and remind me why I believe in healing for survivors and traffickers alike.
I know that the Sunday School answer here is Jesus, but I’m actually referring to my own body. The holy body that God knitted together for me in my mother’s womb. My body, and I guess Jesus’ body too, have taught me that bodies were meant to experience healing and to experience wholeness. Every single body knit together in every single womb is meant for deep, integrated connection and communion with others and with God.
It’s when I can connect to my body that I can connect to a living hope. A hope that this is not the end of any of our stories. A hope that we were created with and for wholeness and life, and that the love and goodness of God is written into the very fabric of our DNA.
On that day the trafficker and the vulnerable young woman will live together.
Yes, a little child will put its hand in a nest of deadly snakes without harm.
Nothing will hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for as the waters fill the sea, so the earth will be filled with (embodied) people who know the Lord.
How do you connect to God in your own body?