- Dec 22, 2017
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I have been a theology major at a Catholic university for a year now, after transferring from a different college I attended for 2 years. I started pondering which of my classes had the biggest impact on my faith life. Intro to New Testament taught me more about God's word; Sacraments taught me more of how He works through His ministers. Yet it wasn't a theology class that had the biggest impact, but Forensic Psychology.
I took Forensic Psychology with a very good friend, one who had volunteered with CASA, spent a summer in Thailand working against human trafficking, and introduced me to the show Criminal Minds. The professor was a forensic psychologist that worked with juveniles & seemed to have a lot of experience with pedophiles. There was a paper I was writing for this class, that was a long assignment that I didn't start until a day & a half before it was due, for reasons irrelevant to this thread.
I wrote that paper on the psychological connections between inappropriate contentography & sexual assault. (It seemed worth sharing, so I posted my research here: inappropriate contentography & sexual assault ). But doing a detailed paper in such a short amount of time fills your head with whatever your researching. In my case, my head was filled with descriptions of rape inappropriate content & other awful things. My mood was dark, my dreams were messed up, I woke up with my mood still out of whack, and I had to keep going in & learning about the awful things people do to each other.
A worrying question kept coming up in my mind; where is God?
My head was swimming in facts about how people profit from posting videos of the people they rape, while many of those who watch it have no idea that the "actors" often don't want to be there. I was imagining what it would be like to have my own daughter, or a very close female friend, to be the one on the screen for someone else's profit & pleasure. I was hearing stories from my friend about the city of Pattaya, an unofficial sex capital of the world, where many of the girls that are kidnapped by online predators end up, to be sold to people who dehumanize prostitutes or think they all are there by choice & get to keep the money, for what amounts to repeated rape for someone else's profit. I heard her stories of the guy she once lived with who tried to kill one of her friends, and the man who was stalking her & threatening to kill her family. And I was seeing bitterly realistic episodes of criminals of all kinds, with kidnappings & murder & revenge filling what I saw on the screen.
There was a point where I honestly had no reason to believe that there was a God anymore. I was going to Daily Mass, trying to transfer to a Catholic college so I could study theology & teach it as a career, and I didn't know if there was actually anyone up there who was looking out for anyone. I was in too deep with the evils of the world; how could there be anything good?
I had no reason to keep believing in a good God; but what would I accomplish by committing to atheism? Nothing would improve. Some may say I would come to recognize the truth, but I was dazed & confused & didn't know what to believe. I have heard stories about people who endure through trials, Job & others, and that seemed like an unlikely path to take, but everything sucked at that point & I went with it.
Theologically, I think God let satan (I refuse to capitalize any name of the enemy) drive me down so far that I had no reason to keep believing in God at all, but He still gave me the grace to realize that even more despair would not help anything.
And I began to see God, so present in these evils after all! His Crucifixion is something I developed such an appreciation for, because it shows that God truly is present in all of our sufferings. Meditate on a Crucifix for awhile, and ask God to explain this to you.
I also remember some powerful parts of my friend's stories of the horrors of human trafficking. She describes this amazing Christian lady that was part of her mission, who would always find God in the worst of situations. They would be sitting in a brothel, surrounded by trafficked girls, and this lady would point out the love the women have for each other, and the love of their mothers that still try to take care of them. She says that you can't understate how evil the traffickers are, the people who kidnap & well 15 or 12 or 8 year old girls to be raped by strangers in any part of the world. But that's not the end of the story! The people who devote their lives to ending this evil, who willingly accept PTSD and risk of life & limb, devoting time & money to fight against evil...This heroism cannot be matched.
And this is what leads me closest to Jesus. I have become one of those people that walks into hell to make Heaven a little more real.
I have not yet fought trafficking on the front lines, but I do what I can, and it takes a toll. I can no longer see a billboard for a strip club without wanting to cry for the girls who are forced into stripping, or who have been sexually abused so long that they think this is all they're worth. I know I'm going to adopt kids out of foster care, because trafficking & sexual abuse is rampant across this dysfunctional system. And I know I will risk my life to go on the front lines to fight trafficking, somehow. This will make my life so much harder, but I will take on the pain for the sake of these girls, for your daughters, for the men & women & boys & girls worldwide that are sold for sex, labor, and anything for another's profit.
This is what makes me like Jesus.
When I take on pain for the sake of another, I am like Jesus. When I willingly endure suffering that I don't deserve, and offer it as prayers for the conversions of those who need it most, I am like Jesus. When I see this life as meaningless, risking everything for the sake of God, taking up my painful Cross because this is what will help people I don't even know, I am like Jesus.
Join me. It doesn't have to be trafficking; this is my passion, but there are plenty of other evils to fight. Francis Chan & his wife find the same sort of passion & faith-building by helping the poor in Africa.* I have a friend who finds this by being active with the local homeless shelter. Whatever form of hell you take on, so it passionately, and do it prayerfully. Lamentations has become one of my favorite books of the Bible; so much of Scripture will come to life when you've been in such desolation.
*Crazylove.org - Official Website
And pray for all of us that take these major issues on. Trust me, we need it. The single best thing you can do to support people who immerse themselves in hell on Earth is to be a constant reminder that there are still good people. Be a good friend; smile, laugh, enjoy life. Despair is part of this mission, but don't let it consume someone's life.I
And pray. Please pray for us, more than you think you need to; you will find, one day, that you've been praying for yourself all along!
I took Forensic Psychology with a very good friend, one who had volunteered with CASA, spent a summer in Thailand working against human trafficking, and introduced me to the show Criminal Minds. The professor was a forensic psychologist that worked with juveniles & seemed to have a lot of experience with pedophiles. There was a paper I was writing for this class, that was a long assignment that I didn't start until a day & a half before it was due, for reasons irrelevant to this thread.
I wrote that paper on the psychological connections between inappropriate contentography & sexual assault. (It seemed worth sharing, so I posted my research here: inappropriate contentography & sexual assault ). But doing a detailed paper in such a short amount of time fills your head with whatever your researching. In my case, my head was filled with descriptions of rape inappropriate content & other awful things. My mood was dark, my dreams were messed up, I woke up with my mood still out of whack, and I had to keep going in & learning about the awful things people do to each other.
A worrying question kept coming up in my mind; where is God?
My head was swimming in facts about how people profit from posting videos of the people they rape, while many of those who watch it have no idea that the "actors" often don't want to be there. I was imagining what it would be like to have my own daughter, or a very close female friend, to be the one on the screen for someone else's profit & pleasure. I was hearing stories from my friend about the city of Pattaya, an unofficial sex capital of the world, where many of the girls that are kidnapped by online predators end up, to be sold to people who dehumanize prostitutes or think they all are there by choice & get to keep the money, for what amounts to repeated rape for someone else's profit. I heard her stories of the guy she once lived with who tried to kill one of her friends, and the man who was stalking her & threatening to kill her family. And I was seeing bitterly realistic episodes of criminals of all kinds, with kidnappings & murder & revenge filling what I saw on the screen.
There was a point where I honestly had no reason to believe that there was a God anymore. I was going to Daily Mass, trying to transfer to a Catholic college so I could study theology & teach it as a career, and I didn't know if there was actually anyone up there who was looking out for anyone. I was in too deep with the evils of the world; how could there be anything good?
"After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go?..." --John 6
The context of my story is vastly different than that of John 6, but at this point they intersect. You can almost feel the pain of Jesus, and see it in his eyes, as so many people leave him. He knows his Apostles have the choice to leave him, and nothing in this Scripture passage suggest that they actually understand what he is talking about. But they choose to stick with him anyway, not because they see the good in Jesus at this point, but because there is nowhere better to go.
I had no reason to keep believing in a good God; but what would I accomplish by committing to atheism? Nothing would improve. Some may say I would come to recognize the truth, but I was dazed & confused & didn't know what to believe. I have heard stories about people who endure through trials, Job & others, and that seemed like an unlikely path to take, but everything sucked at that point & I went with it.
Theologically, I think God let satan (I refuse to capitalize any name of the enemy) drive me down so far that I had no reason to keep believing in God at all, but He still gave me the grace to realize that even more despair would not help anything.
And I began to see God, so present in these evils after all! His Crucifixion is something I developed such an appreciation for, because it shows that God truly is present in all of our sufferings. Meditate on a Crucifix for awhile, and ask God to explain this to you.
I also remember some powerful parts of my friend's stories of the horrors of human trafficking. She describes this amazing Christian lady that was part of her mission, who would always find God in the worst of situations. They would be sitting in a brothel, surrounded by trafficked girls, and this lady would point out the love the women have for each other, and the love of their mothers that still try to take care of them. She says that you can't understate how evil the traffickers are, the people who kidnap & well 15 or 12 or 8 year old girls to be raped by strangers in any part of the world. But that's not the end of the story! The people who devote their lives to ending this evil, who willingly accept PTSD and risk of life & limb, devoting time & money to fight against evil...This heroism cannot be matched.
And this is what leads me closest to Jesus. I have become one of those people that walks into hell to make Heaven a little more real.
I have not yet fought trafficking on the front lines, but I do what I can, and it takes a toll. I can no longer see a billboard for a strip club without wanting to cry for the girls who are forced into stripping, or who have been sexually abused so long that they think this is all they're worth. I know I'm going to adopt kids out of foster care, because trafficking & sexual abuse is rampant across this dysfunctional system. And I know I will risk my life to go on the front lines to fight trafficking, somehow. This will make my life so much harder, but I will take on the pain for the sake of these girls, for your daughters, for the men & women & boys & girls worldwide that are sold for sex, labor, and anything for another's profit.
This is what makes me like Jesus.
When I take on pain for the sake of another, I am like Jesus. When I willingly endure suffering that I don't deserve, and offer it as prayers for the conversions of those who need it most, I am like Jesus. When I see this life as meaningless, risking everything for the sake of God, taking up my painful Cross because this is what will help people I don't even know, I am like Jesus.
Join me. It doesn't have to be trafficking; this is my passion, but there are plenty of other evils to fight. Francis Chan & his wife find the same sort of passion & faith-building by helping the poor in Africa.* I have a friend who finds this by being active with the local homeless shelter. Whatever form of hell you take on, so it passionately, and do it prayerfully. Lamentations has become one of my favorite books of the Bible; so much of Scripture will come to life when you've been in such desolation.
*Crazylove.org - Official Website
And pray for all of us that take these major issues on. Trust me, we need it. The single best thing you can do to support people who immerse themselves in hell on Earth is to be a constant reminder that there are still good people. Be a good friend; smile, laugh, enjoy life. Despair is part of this mission, but don't let it consume someone's life.I
And pray. Please pray for us, more than you think you need to; you will find, one day, that you've been praying for yourself all along!
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