How Survivors Give Each Other Hope

Alexis, who blogs at Spilled Perfume, just posted a beautiful piece about how survivors encourage each other, about her realization that she wants to devote her life to helping people exit prostitution, and about her new book, which will soon be available on Amazon.com — Hooray!!  Here’s an excerpt:

On Thursday night last week, I made a big decision: I will give myself and my life fully, 100% to helping people escape prostitution, and helping survivors recover.  This decision has been four years in the making.  I think it is good idea that God gave me this desire years before I was ready; this allowed me to ponder it intensely and get prepared.  My wounds were too fresh before so it was not really an option for me to help other victims (not to mention that I had no courage whatsoever), but it seems that the timing is right somehow.

I often feel that I’m not in the driver’s seat of my own car.  My life is so random and unpredictable.  So check out these VERY CRAZY THINGS which have been going on in the past eight days.

First of all, I met a survivor of child sex trafficking just 24 hours after my car accident which should have killed me.  I’ve never had the courage to find out about how to apply for positions working with sex-trafficked survivors, but by the time I read his story (which took me and hour and a half) I was completely resolved.  This is the reason I did not die last Monday.  This is the reason I’m alive.  Again, I’ve known this for four years, but I did not have the courage or the resolve until Thursday night.

Second, I’m realizing that this decision I made will have its rewards and joys but it will also have its challenges and tough times.  I cannot express the joy I feel from hearing my new friend – who was trafficked as a little boy from age 6 until age 10 – asking me, “How did you get to where you are today?  I’m having trouble in my recovery.  I don’t know if it’s possible to recover.  I don’t feel that I deserve to recover.”  This is a flicker of hope, a flicker of life inside someone who is somehow still alive against all logic and all reason.  He wants to recover.  He’s not sure how, but if there is any flicker of hope out there he wants to grab hold of it.

So this is an exciting thing about being involved in the lives of survivors!

Read the rest of this beautiful post at www.ragamuffinalexis.wordpress.com.

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