Emily Parker shares a Fusion message from Jen Baker, the Anti-Trafficking Director of City Hearts.

Jen Baker

Hearing other people's personal experiences and journey can help encourage us in our walk. Knowing others have overcome in life helps us to face the challenges in front of us.

I'd like to share with you something Jen Baker spoke about. I interviewed her on Fusion, my Cross Rhythms radio show. Fusion encourages young girls to rise up and discover who they were made to be.

Jen is the Anti-Trafficking Director of City Hearts. They work with victims of trafficking and those who have been rescued out of slavery. She is also the author of two books, 'Untangled' and 'Unlimited'.

Jen looked at freedom from fear and freedom from rejection. Freedom is a huge passion of hers.
Freedom is the power or right to act, speak, or think as we want to. It is also the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved. This is what Jen shared:

"Slavery is alive and well today! There are nearly 30 million people that are enslaved in the world. Every 30 seconds, there is another person that becomes a slave, and we don't realise how much it is happening all around us. I have a real passion to see people set free, but then I also have a real passion for each one of us to be free in ourselves.

When I was younger, when I was a kid especially, I struggled a lot with fear and rejection. I was constantly wondering what people were thinking about me: did they like me and was I going to be accepted. I spent a lot of my teenage years (though people don't believe it today) being incredibly shy and incredibly quiet. I wouldn't speak to anybody. I'd walk down the hallways at school with my head down. I just didn't want to be seen and yet I was desperate to be seen.

I think a lot of times we feel that way. We want to be hidden because we're afraid we'll be rejected, but then we're desperate for somebody to see us and to love us and to accept us and to talk to us.

When I was a teenager especially, a lot of that was worked out through different eating disorders. I was anorexic and bulimic and I made a lot of mistakes as a kid because I was trying to reach out for someone to help me. I lived in a lot of fear until I was about 19.

When I was 19 I became a Christian and that completely and totally changed my life. I discovered that there's a God in heaven that absolutely loves me and accepts me and would never reject me.
There's a verse in the Bible that says, "I will never leave you and I'll never forsake you". When God gives a promise, it's a promise and he means it. The fact that there's somebody there that will absolutely never walk away from me really changed my life.

What I started to do was pray, "God I want to know you more. I want to know who you are. I want to know what you think of me". That was a really simple prayer, but it completely changed my life.
Sometimes I would walk down the hallway in university, or walk around the campus and I would imagine that Jesus was walking with me. It sounds a little bit silly, but it absolutely changed my life. When I got to know him I got to know myself.

I would really encourage anyone who might be struggling with fear and might be struggling with rejection and struggling with wondering what people think of you, to know that there's a God in heaven that absolutely loves you. He created you in your mother's womb. He was watching you as he created you and he loves your eyes and he loves your hair and he loves how tall you are and he loves your smile and your laugh.

Ask him to show you what he thinks of you. Discover who he is, because when we discover who he is, we discover who we are. Then suddenly there's a confidence that we get and we're no longer afraid, because we know that we are accepted and to me, that is absolute freedom."

If you want to find out more about the work of City Hearts then head to the website: www.city-hearts.co.uk. You can follow Jen on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Jen-Baker.