Kicking Back

Of course! Christmas was the best ever. With six grandchildren at my house for seven days and seven nights, how could it be anything else? They’ve returned to their homes, settled in, and have returned to school. With the New Year under way, it’s time to kick back.

Hardly! Kicking back is not on my radar. I make resolutions, and for many years they’ve had something to do with my career in interior design. This is one of the few years since 1984 that the New Year is not about interior design. It’s about setting new goals and finding what is at the core of me that might connect with the core of you. That goes along with interior design, doesn’t it?

Grounded in Giftedness

At our core is a tough central part that determines who we are. I’m thinking it’s comparable to seeds that God purposefully created within our hearts. We’re equipped with qualities, gifts, and potential that make us uniquely us.

Frankly speaking, if I paid for voice lessons from now till the cows came home, I still wouldn’t be able to sing with a gifted voice. It’s just not there. But, give me a spatial context and I can turn it upside down. It will take your breath away! And I am referring specifically to homes—interiors.

Can I say that with confidence? You bet! Because I’m simply affirming a gift God gave me. Along with years spent studying to obtain the expertise, I am qualified. I can see beyond the unlovely and create beauty. So 2019 has me looking at my core and the seeds that are waiting to sprout, praying that through them my resolutions for the coming year will emerge in beauty as I connect with people, using the gifts—abilities—entrusted to me.

Walk Humbly With Your God

This is a new charge for me: to help others gain awareness of the issues that threaten to destroy the joy of living. Human trafficking does that. It interrupts, it re-routes, and it destroys lives.

The one hundred and fifty billion-dollar-a-year human trafficking industry that claims the innocence of children, and the freedom of young boys and girls, and the dignity of multi-age individuals of both genders is a horrific heartbreak. That’s putting it mildly.

January is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, officially designated in 2011 through a Presidential Proclamation by Barack Obama. National Human Trafficking Awareness Day is observed every year on January 11. There are an estimated 57,700 victims in the United States and the average age is 13 years old.

Thousands of volunteers are gathering to take aim against predators who are robbing individuals of life itself. Ending slavery will happen—not by the end of January but, surely, one day at a time as we seek justice for victims. And what we are told in the Bible, according to Micah 6:8, is to “do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God.”

Boundaries Keep Us Free

Sound odd? Not really when you consider what’s at stake when there are no boundaries. Our heart—the core of our being—is extremely valuable. Every heart is. Every victim of human slavery is worth the effort to save him or her. King Solomon said it best: “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” (Proverbs 4:23).

Join with the many volunteers battling human trafficking—troubled hearts!—who want to end the savage theft of innocent hearts by abolishing slavery. Resolve to find out how you can help by visiting Polaris or End Slavery TN.That’s an embraceable resolution—one that really matters.

Human trafficking. Boundaries.