I didn’t grow up imagining I would one day write a modern retelling of Hagar’s story, much less one set against the brutal reality of human trafficking. I began writing Rejected with a simple desire: to explore the heart of a woman who felt unseen, unheard, and unprotected. I wanted to understand what it means to run from the very people who should have offered refuge. I wanted to understand Hagar’s courage.
But the deeper I went into Helena’s world, the more I realized I wasn’t just writing a novel. I was stepping into a truth I could no longer un-know. The coercion disguised as affection and the promises that turn into chains are a reality for so many people, both children and adults, across the world.
Human trafficking taught me about faith. It taught me about freedom.
Faith Became Something Gritty
When I began learning about trafficking, I didn’t expect the stories to collide with my faith the way they did. I had always thought of faith as something lifted, eyes up, heart open. But survivor stories taught me that faith is often something scraped together in the dark. It’s whispered from bathroom floors. It’s swallowed tears and silent prayers. It’s a trembling breath that says, “Lord, if You see me, show me.”
Faith became less about certainty and more about presence, the kind that enters the wilderness with you. Hagar taught me that. Helena taught me that. Every survivor I learned from reinforced it: faith is the strength to believe your worth before the world ever confirms it.
Freedom Began With Truth
Writing about trafficking forced me to confront what freedom actually means. It isn’t simply the absence of chains or the ability to walk through an open door. It isn’t even escape.
Freedom can be truth. It’s the truth about who you are. It’s the ability to share what happened to you without judgment. It’s the truth about your dignity, even when the world treats it like it’s disposable. Survivors taught me that freedom looks like reclaiming your own name, your voice and the story someone tried to rewrite for you.
In Scripture, God calls Hagar by name, something no one else in her household ever bothered to do. That moment is where her freedom begins. She is finally seen.
Human trafficking taught me that freedom starts with seeing people and refusing to let exploitation hide behind silence.
Trauma and Theology Walked Into the Same Room
Before this project, I had never placed theology and trauma side by side. I never imagined that biblical study would intersect with hotline transcripts, survivor interviews, and nonprofit training manuals. Yet they met each other in every chapter of Rejected.
Trauma asks hard questions. Faith holds the space for them.
Trauma says, “Love shouldn’t hurt.” Faith says, “You were made for more.”
Trauma says, “Why didn’t anyone come for me?” Faith says, “I was with you even in the wilderness.”
Human trafficking made my theology less tidy but far more true. It pulled my faith out of the pews and carried it into the alleys, the shelters, the courtrooms, and the messy middle where healing actually happens.
I Learned That Advocacy Is a Spiritual Practice
The deeper I went into research, the clearer it became: learning about trafficking is not an academic exercise. It’s an invitation. It’s a stewardship of awareness. Once your eyes open, they don’t close again.
Advocacy is worship, and awareness leads to action.
I can’t undo what happens to girls like Helena, but I can refuse to look away. I can use my words to illuminate the corners where exploitation hides. I can shift the narrative from shame to dignity, from silence to truth, from despair to hope. And that, for me, is faith lived out loud.
In the End, Human Trafficking Taught Me This Faith is not fragile. Freedom is not theoretical. Both are fought for through prayer, in community, in policy, and in storytelling.
Human trafficking taught me to see the God who pursues the lost girl running through the desert, the God who meets the one who has been cast out, the God who restores what was taken, and the God who writes endings fuller than the beginnings we endured. God hears those who are in the margins, those who cry out to Him in the desert of their lives, those who may not even know who it is they’re calling out to.
Writing this story taught me that faith and freedom are intertwined gifts, ones we have to protect, honor, and extend to others. Stories like this can be bridges, lanterns, deliverance for people who have often been forgotten or rejected.
I wrote Rejected because Hagar’s story deserves to be heard again. I finished it because Helena’s story demanded it.
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