I have been doing a lot of gardening lately. This is a fairly recent passion. The more I get into it the more I have seen so many parallels to life.

My gardening endeavor coincided time-wise with preparing for our Girls Night Out that we had this past Monday evening.  The topic of the evening was a serious one ~ Human Trafficking, specifically sex trafficking.  It is not a pleasant topic yet it is important that we talk about this and don’t ignore what is going on right under our noses, in our city, on our watch. (and not just our city ~ lots of cities and even small towns)

According to the Clearwater Area Task Force on Human Trafficking’s website recent studies estimate that approximately 18,000 to 50,000 people are trafficked into the United States annually with Florida being one of the top 3 destination states.

And so if we look at our community as our “garden” and we want to bring out the God-colors in our corner of the world, we must do what every gardener has to do when they get started.

We must CLEAR, CREATE and COMMIT.

We must clear the garden of the things that are choking or eating away at the potentially beautiful plants and flowers.  The Task Force is working hard to do that along with the lawmakers and concerned citizens that are aware and looking for signs, calling the hotline with potential leads.

We must create safe and nurturing environments for the flowers and plants to grow.  We must make sure the soil that they are planted in is rich with nutrients.  Organizations like Created and Bridging Freedom are doing just that.  Making sure that the victims that are rescued have a safe place to recover and rehabilitate.

We must commit to caring for our plants and flowers.  We cannot expect to plant flowers in the ground and just expect them to thrive.  They need water, fertilizer and light! If we want to see change we must commit to helping in someway.  Everybody can do something.

Our evening ended with this song.  If you have time, have a listen.

COMING UP:  I will be expounding on the gardening theme but how it applies to our personal lives and dreams…stay tuned 🙂