In my absence, she grew distant. Suffering silently under
an impossible weight of fear and failure, she gave in to the darkness that
beckoned her. When I returned from my short Stateside trip, she was gone. She
turned her phone off, she refused any of our calls. She tried to fully
disappear. Knowing she’s not a girl anymore but a young adult, I released her
to the Lord and prayed she’d return before too many natural consequences take
her further away from herself, her Lord, and me. But in church that Sunday, I
prayed for her. Prayer changes things. Not because our words can do any work of
their own, but because prayer opens our own souls up to the Holy Spirit. As I
prayed for her with my eyes closed, I saw a glimpse of her. She was sitting in
a one room house, dark and cold and empty. She was sitting on a chair with her
arms wrenched behind her back and her wrists bound together, tied to the chair.
There were no sounds. She didn’t speak, but she looked at me. Mute, she called
to me. Her eyes were big but lifeless. She beckoned without opening her mouth,
“Please come and get me.”
And the vision ended. I opened my eyes, startled by the
direct phrase, “Come and get me.” The look on her face, the droopy and dead
eyes reminded me of the day I picked her up only hours after she was brutally
raped in broad daylight. I realized, though it had been over a year later, she
was not where I thought she was on her healing journey. I felt the Lord showing
me, “Kate, she’s still back there. She’s bound. She’s trapped. She’s broken and
hurting. She needs Me. I am sending you.” It wasn’t a physical prison but a
spiritual one.
The next morning I called an emergency meeting. I
shared the vision with some of our leadership team. We discussed as colleagues what
we missed the last year in terms of her healing journey. As we noted gaps, we
came up with next steps. We had a proper plan in place, now we just needed to
find her. But how? We didn’t have any clue or any way to get a hold of her. We
contacted her older brother in hopes she contacted him, and maybe he could give
us information. But we couldn’t get through to his number. So we prayed.
Pushed by the urgency of the vision and prayer, the case
manager and I got into the car after the team prayed for us. “Holy Spirit, you
know where she is. We don’t. Please take us there.” With no clear direction, we
got into the car and drove. Somewhere along the way, the brother called. He
affirmed yes she had contacted him but he had no idea where she was. He named
the city of the last place he knew she had been. So we drove there. We picked
up the brother first and drove to the city with no idea where or how we would
find her. Along the car ride, we had found out information about a boyfriend in
this city. So we started looking for the boyfriend. It took all day, but we
somehow managed to find his number (through the brother calling someone with
the boyfriend’s same name, but it was not the boyfriend; incredibly, the
stranger knew the boyfriend we were looking for and gave us his contact number)!
By the end of the day, we had managed to call the boyfriend and he affirmed the
girl we were looking for was staying with him. However, he said he was “far
away” and couldn’t meet us nor would he give us information to find our girl.
He said he could meet us later in the week instead. I was ready to give in.
“Guys, we tried our best. At least we have a contact of the boyfriend now.
Let’s try again tomorrow.”
But our case manager was pushed by her faith. “Let’s not
give up, yet, M. Let’s try to find his place anyway. One more attempt.” Not
believing it could be possible, I agreed anyway because her hope gave me hope.
Having the name of the boyfriend and a picture we found
from social media, we drove around a bit and showed the picture and asked
random strangers if they knew this guy and where we could find his homestead.
We were directed to an area and told to ask around again. So we did. We showed
a lady the picture and she hesitantly called her friend over. He came over and
asked why we were looking for this guy. We relayed that we were trying to find
our girl and he told us sorry he can’t give any info because what if we were
trying to find the guy for revenge. We spent the next 10 minutes convincing
them that we didn’t want revenge, we weren’t going to hurt the guy, just that
we needed to find our girl. Reluctantly, he gave us a general direction but not
specifics.
We drove in the direction we were given and the brother
said, “Stop, I think it’s here.” We stopped and parked away from the house and
waited while the brother went to verify the house. Sure enough, out walked the
girl we were looking for. I sprang out the car expecting her to look shocked or
even try to hide from me/us. Instead, she looked right into my eyes and walked
to me. As if she hadn’t run away to begin with, she looked like she was
expecting me. She hugged me absent-mindedly but hot tears fell from her eyes to
my shoulder. She didn’t say a word. But I felt her in arms surrender to the
Savior. When I said, “Let’s go home,” she nodded without hesitation, grabbed
her stuff and got into the car.
This is a day I’ll never forget for the rest of my life.
Not just because we found her and brought her home. But because God chased her!
He pursued her. He ran after her! O the God of Hosea, the one who pursues and
redeems and makes all things new! I’ll never forget the miracles of that day.
How we left in our car with absolutely nothing but a prayer. And it’s prayer
that got us through the entire day. It’s prayer that led us directly to her.
Like, y’all! Seriously?! It’s prayer that did the impossible. It’s prayer that
changes things.
One of the most powerful but simple prayers I’ve learned
in the last decade is this:
“Jesus, come and get me.”
He does. He did. He will.
