A Captive No More

CAPTIVE NO MORE Chapter 1 “Understanding Bondage” The New York Times headline read, “Jaycee Dugard’s ‘Stolen Life’: 18 Years of Abuse.” This horrible event occurred on June 10, 1991 in South Lake Tahoe, California. Jaycee Lee was 11 years old at the time she was abducted from a street near her home while walking to the school bus stop, an action taken by thousands of kids each day. But on this day, for this young lady, an eighteen-year nightmare of bondage began. The article tells us that “hers is a story of her being yanked out of her normal life at the age of 11; spending 18 years imprisoned by the convicted rapist Phillip Garrido and his wife, Nancy; and bearing two daughters by Mr. Garrido.” A lead was found on August 24, 2009, when Garrido visited the campus of UC Berkeley accompanied by two young girls that showed signs of extreme nervousness and social awkwardness. As people observed the unusual behavior of the girls, they reported their observations to local police. Their report sparked an investigation that led Garrido to bring the two girls to a parole office a couple days later, accompanied by a young woman who was then identified as Jaycee Lee Dugard. On April 28, 2011, Garrido and his wife were arrested for kidnapping and other charges. At their trial, they pleaded guilty to Dugard's kidnapping, which included 18 years of bondage and sexual assault. As the trial information began to be released to the public, it was stated that “law enforcement officers believe Jaycee Lee was kept in a concealed area behind Garrido's house in Antioch, California for 18 years. …During this 18 year period of confinement, Jaycee Lee bore two daughters fathered by Garrido, who were aged 11 and 15 at the time of her reappearance.” Having not experienced anything remotely close to what Jaycee Lee experienced, I find it difficult to comprehend all of the terrors and levels of pain that she must have experienced under physical and emotional bondage from a madman. I find it difficult to have any sense of mercy for a person like Garrido—a man who is so perverted in his soul that he is capable of bringing this type of evil on others. As much as we hate it, this kind of atrocity happens. The reality is such that bondage has its evil grip on people at various levels all around us every day. Bondage is a condition of servitude to someone or something that has no power to offer freedom. The result is a hopeless and powerless life hindered from finding the greatness that God designed for each person. The reality that there may be severe or even small levels of bondage in our life should motivate us to seek God’s plan for deliverance. With a little time and effort to get to know the people around us, we will begin to see bondages that may be robbing people of their God-given lives. Billy can’t stop drinking. Staying numb to the pain of his bondage consumes his thoughts and has become the goal he pursues. Sherry is now in prison because her drive to gamble led her to embezzle thousands of dollars from her job to cover gambling losses. James is now divorced and separated from his wife, his children, and his home because of his addiction to pornography. The easy and quick self-gratification led to an unfaithfulness that destroyed his family. Jennifer was so lost and felt such an emptiness inside that she lost control of her health. Food became her guilty obsession, and now she is bed-ridden with diseases that are destroying her body because her weight is over 400 pounds. The once vivacious Melody is now in a personal bondage of fear. The feeling of fear has grown so powerful that she now relies on Prozac to stabilize her emotions enough that she can even get out of bed in the morning. The United States of America, a nation who once had a vision to be a light set on a hill and a beacon of hope, is now in a moral and financial bondage that is leading to bankruptcy and a moral decline. On and on the stories go. Is there any hope? Is there a way back from our bondages? Is there a path of truth that, with determined faith, we could take to re-emerge from our pit? What is bondage? After this reading, you may be able to identify some of the bondages that are keeping friends and family from experiencing full life in Jesus Christ. Name some of the bondages you can see in others. Let’s begin an investigation to see if there is a way out of our bondages so that we might find the life designed for us by God Himself.