JUSTICE

Sometimes I can't sleep. I close my eyes and I see families drinking from dirty puddles, children growing up in foster care, young girls lured into the sex industry by the promise of love and belonging. I see teens advertised online, feeding the consumerism of the sex industry. I see young women supporting their families by selling their bodies, I see children born into brothels as the sick cycle continues. The list goes on.

JUSTICE.

My heart longs for it. My mind races with thoughts and ideas, stories and solutions.

But I'll be honest with you. I'm just an ordinary person. Justice is too big for me. I can pursue justice alone, but true justice happens when people come together and fight for it. True justice happens when a community says enough is enough, and they invest in a solution.


Justice can require big, strategic action for scary, gross, overwhelming problems. Justice needs to happen, but it takes time and resources and determination and a crowd who will not rest until justice wins. 

Justice happens when ordinary people like you and me partner with organizations like Redemption Ridge and Trades of Hope  and IJM and Shared Hope.

So I go to work every day in my little gray cubicle and on payday I cut a check to the organizations I love, and then what? If we're lucky, some of us get to do more with these organizations. We volunteer, we write letters, we go on a trip. But for most of us, we pray and we pay and we feel like we should be doing more.

We can do more. 
Right here. Right now. With what we have.

MERCY.

Mercy can happen right now, with resources you have in your hand, in simple and profound ways. One willing heart, one moment in time, one act of mercy - it changes things.

Justice begins with mercy. I believe that in order for justice to thrive, we need to create a culture and a community that practices mercy.

MERCY CHANGES THINGS.

In my next post we'll take a closer look at mercy and how it feeds justice. We'll look at things that keep us from mercy in our lives. We'll talk about ways we can show mercy TODAY.

What do you know about mercy? Have you ever been shown mercy?