Today’s guest post is from Tim Fall.

​Maria de los Angeles “Marita” Veron disappeared ten years ago. Her mother hasn’t stopped looking for her since.

Marita was 23 at the time, the mother of a 3 year old daughter. At first her disappearance was unexplained. Then a tip came in: she had been kidnapped and trafficked as a sex slave. Her mother Susana Trimarco implored the police to investigate, but due to the inertia of some and the corruption of others her pleas went unanswered. So Trimarco did it herself.

​As this article notes, Trimarco never did find her daughter. Marita had been sighted here or there, but was never found despite some close calls. Yet Trimarco also never gave up, and hundreds of women have been rescued from sex trafficking in brothels through her personal efforts. Thousands more have been freed as a result of the work of a foundation and a special police force created since Trimarco began her search for her daughter.

​Amazingly, Argentina did not even have a law against human trafficking until 2008. Now thirteen people are on trial for the kidnap and trafficking of Trimarco’s daughter, a year-long trial at which Trimarco herself testified for six days. A verdict is expected next Tuesday.

Her inability to save her daughter has not kept her from helping those young women she finds trapped, lost, held captive.

Our Tireless Seeker

Trimarco’s quest reminded me of another dogged seeker, our Savior Jesus. He told his companions that God is in the seeking and saving business:

“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:10.)

And he’s in the business of freeing those held captive:

​“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:18-21.)

And he is a tireless seeker:

“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.” (Matthew 18:12-14.)

And he is our ransom:

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45.)

​This is our Savior, one who continues to hunt for us, to loosen chains that bind us, to bring us out of captivity and into a freedom more marvelous than any we could ever imagine. We are lost without him. In him and through him we are found, blessed for eternity:

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:4-7.)

Past, Present, Future

I love that these are passages concern past, present and future.

Past: While we were dead in our transgressions, Christ died for us. Jesus came to seek and save. He fulfilled the prophecy of a Savior in the presence of those around him.

Present: God’s present will is that none of his people should perish. We are presently seated with him in the heavenly realms; it’s not something we have to wait for.

Future: God is going to show us even more incomparable riches of his grace in the ages to come.

The bottom line is that our God saves:

Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior,

who daily bears our burdens.

Our God is a God who saves;

from the Sovereign Lord comes escape from death. (Psalm 68:19-20.)

This is our God, our rescue, our ransom. We are found.

Tim is a California native who changed his major three times, colleges four times, and took six years to get a Bachelor’s degree in a subject he’s never been called on to use professionally. Married for 25 years with two kids (one in college and one just graduated, woo-hoo!) his family is constant evidence of God’s abundant blessings in his life. He and his wife live in Northern California.