Oklahoma: God worked in me

This summer I served at a shelter for women and children who are victims of domestic violence or human trafficking. These two terms carry heavy weight and stereotypes with them. Coming in, it’s easy to view them as their label—ST (sex trafficking) or DV (domestic violence). One thing I didn’t see coming is that somewhere along the way, I stopped viewing them as women of abuse or trafficking but instead just as women. 

Kimberly ParkerWhen we arrived as summer missionaries, the first few weeks consisted of training and hands-on learning. We spent hours learning information about domestic violence and human trafficking. I didn’t think these things would affect me much, since I didn’t consider myself a sheltered kid. However, these weeks were intense. During the first week, I found myself on “the crying couch” in my supervisor’s office, wailing.  The funny thing is I hate for people to see me cry, much less a woman I barely knew who would now be my boss for the next two months.

Training brought up a lot of deep-rooted issues for me that I was being faced to deal with. I will never forget what she told me: “You can spend the next two months running from what God is trying to teach you. Or you can give up, and let him do his work in you.” 

I chose to let God do his work in me. 

Over the next five weeks, here’s what happened:

• God broke my spirit of rebellion. “I will fence her in with thorn bushes; I will block her path with a wall to make her lose her way. …Then she will think, ‘I may as well return to my husband, for I was better off with him than I am now’”(Hosea 2:6-7). I had spent the months before my trip running from God instead of letting God prepare my heart. The incredible thing is that long before I turned my back on God, he knew that I would need this shelter. He prepared the way for me, even as I was working against him. 

• Jesus Christ helped me share my full testimony, for the first time ever, with the ladies at the shelter. Through studying the book of Hosea this summer and through the testimony of these ladies, God taught me that being broken doesn’t make you damaged goods. God helped me see myself as he sees me, as a stained glass window—beautiful and broken and imperfect. He showed me I have a testimony to share because of how God has picked up those shattered pieces of glass and put them back together again. 

• God taught me that he answers prayers. Somewhere along the way in losing my father to cancer, I stopped believing that. God called me out this summer and challenged me to pray boldly for things. He then chose to answer every single petition. The point wasn’t that I was suddenly an expert pray-er because I was on the mission field, but that God cared enough about my communion with him that he proved himself to me to restore it. 

• God reminded me he has good planned for me. He used the ladies at the shelter to show me that even though God doesn’t always protect us from the lions’ den, he protects us in it. For me, this was a key factor in my return to full commitment to Christ. One of the hardest things for me, and I believe many, to grasp is why God allows bad things to happen if he loves us so much. He revealed to me that free will allows the sin of man to affect others. His grace does not always protect us from that; however, God will use our trials for the furthering of the kingdom, if we allow him. These women’s experiences were living proof that what the devil meant for evil, God uses for good. 

• Finally, for my return home, God reminded me that a Christ-follower must walk in the footsteps of Christ. Christ is still teaching me how to walk in his image with righteousness coming from his sacrifice instead of my own strength. 

I feel like the physical work that we have done here this summer pales in comparison to the magnitude of what I have learned from these beautifully broken women alongside the gracious work of Jesus Christ. 

Kimberly Parker, a student at Mississippi College, served alongside Go Now Missions workers this summer in Oklahoma at a shelter for survivors of domestic abuse and human trafficking.