taken

As usual I have a lot on my mind at a late hour. Suprised? Well, here it goes...and be gentle, this is close to my heart.

I went to see Taken tonight. If you haven't heard of it, it's a movie about the sex trade. If you haven't heard of that, read my other blogs...most of them have something to do with it haha. But the movie just keeps replaying in my mind. Well, not all of it. Not the parts where he unrealistically kills like 7 people in about 5 minutes. But the parts about prostitution are what stuck with me. It's been a long time since I've seen a movie like this one. I can't close my eyes because when I do, I see a 17 year old beautiful girl being auctioned off to a bunch of rich men. Or I see a 19 year old girl handcuffed to a bed with no pulse. Those are the parts that stuck with me.

But there's one line that got me. It made me so angry. The man told the girl's father "It's just business, it's nothing personal." I've been thinking about that ever since. It's nothing personal. But, see, it is personal. It hit me (and yes I already knew this but it really hit me) that each girl out there being sold for a few bucks behind a curtain or being auctioned off for $500,000...that girl is someone's daughter. She's someone's sister. She's someone's friend. Even the girls who are sold by their own parents, I have a hard time believing it was an easy decision for those parents. Maybe it was, who knows, but I like to believe it wasn't easy.

I hope these images leave my mind. I keep thinking of the girls I met in Cambodia. I can't bear to think that they went through anything similar to what that movie portrayed. I don't want to think that they've been raped over and over just because their parents needed some money. But it's true, and you can't get rid of the truth.

Usually I like to make these blogs somewhat hopeful or uplifting, but that's not the spirit I'm in tonight. Is that wrong? It's just that movie was more than a movie to me...it was a rude reminder of what I've been called to change, even if I think I can't.