Scribed In Light

-Nurturing Hearts Through Healing Reflection and Graceful Growth | Scribed In Light

There are days I wish I could look away, but I can’t.

Like the day my son was caught within a seizure cycle for nine and a half hours straight. I wanted to run that day…from the helplessness, from the sight of his suffering, from the terrible realization that we might lose him.

My moms-heart was caught between pure anguish for my child…and the steadfast need to remain at his side— so that he would feel my touch, so that he would know that he was not alone…and God forbid – for him to hear my voice, his mothers comfort and love, should he pass from this life.

Having been trained in emergent medical care, I stood there overseeing every medical decision made to ensure his safety. Nine and a half hours. I can still recall standing at his bedside…watching them intubate…praying they got it placed on first attempt…observing every step as he got vented. I recall flying out with him. A twenty five minute flight which seemed like only three minutes tops. I sat with my helmet and headgear on, the percussive beats of the rotor echoing through my body as I thought upon the many faces of those I’d flown out – how surreal this moment felt to be staring at my child, now the one strapped into that cot. We flew from a local hospital to Children’s…landing on the helipad where he began seizing, yet again.

The trauma room in the ER was sheer chaos. People pouring in from every direction. Hand-over-fist while maneuvering through each necessary medical intervention to sustain his life. My heart and my brain in competition between a mother’s anx and love…and my brain keeping tabs on medical skill sets within each and every intervention. All faces and bodies a blur as I focused on his little face, his body, his vitals reading across all monitors, watching to see if any intervention brought positive results and recovery.

I stood at his side for nine and one half hours…begging God for his life.

Then, the emotional horror of feeling a hand reach from behind to rest upon my shoulder – turning to see it was a chaplain, called to read my son his last rites.

I collapsed.

It’s the same feeling. Wishing I could tun away from the horrors my heart cannot carry.

Yet when people are hurting, when families are being torn apart…when I feel the ache of their suffering all the way down to the marrow of my bones…

I cannot turn away.

I turn into – and run. The need to offer comfort, protection, strength, direction and guidance through the storm outweighing the horror.

I don’t get out much these days, as I am a 24/7 caregiver to the son who’s story I just shared.

So when I opened a video this morning, and witnessed the protests in California… the federal raids…the immigrant families being separated…the tear gas and rubber bullets fired by soldiers in attempt to calm the chaos upon the streets within our cities – yet also hitting innocent victims – I couldn’t unsee it.

My heart feels cracked in half. The ache of such inhumane sights pour out.

I am certain their hearts are in similar unrest, just like so many were during the the Civil War – when brother fought against brother…cousin against cousin….father against son.

That could have been my husband sent in by the government. My cousin. My niece. My neighbor’s son.

How could I be careless to their outcome in this, too? The police, security teams, and military – also caught in the crossfire of chaos – now being met with rebellion, aggressive backlash, and a rising tide of fear aimed in every direction.

I also come from a past of survival.

Terror, torment, and suffering were a normal part of life for me. I grew up surrounded by toxicity, where emotions were laid to waste.

However, I also learned from survival.

I know full well the hunger, the ache, the whispered prayers laced with hope for freedom from such anguish. The raw desperation to escape unbearable, stagnant circumstances.

I would’ve done anything to have gained that release – to find the possibility of a better life for my sister and myself.

So no, I am not blind to what immigrants must be suffering as well.

I am not a political expert.

I am a caregiver.

I am a trauma survivor.

I’m a wife, a mother, a grandmother. A woman who has walked through fire…and still chooses love and grace.

Yet, when I see people aching for safety, begging for freedom, desperate for a new life…I don’t just watch. I feel.

Because once upon a time, I was a child in the storm of adversity too.

THE ACHE THAT SPLIT ME

I understand why there’s unrest.

I understand the fear.

I’ve seen what illegal activity can bring into a community.

Working in EMS, I’ve witnessed the fallout – domestic violence, gang initiations, cartel brutality, human trafficking, drug rings. I know the cost.

I’ve seen the danger that can rise when desperation collides with lawlessness…and I’ve seen how easily compassion, and even the right choices, gets drowned out by fear.

I don’t ignore the risk hidden within cultural collisions – because I’ve lived in the thick of it.

I’ve heard the stories. Families in other countries being held hostage. A family member…men and women…selected for illegal entry into the States…marked and tracked…to gain jobs and send money back for their safety or release.

Years of indentured slavery. Allowed, overlooked, and at the risk and mercy of our government.

Its heartbreaking, unacceptable, intolerable and discouraging to say the least.

Could you imagine this happening to you?

Could you imagine this happening to your child?

Could you imagine this happening to your best friend, a neighbor, or any other human being? Because it is happening. It’s happening to somebody right now as you are reading this.

I could share some stories that had me bursting into tears and still cause me nightmares. Stories of people whose only crime was hoping for a better life, and how ignorance toward their truth has fueled their suffering. They need our help…not hinderance. They need our hearts…not our judgment.

Illegal immigration is not always what we perceive it to be. Every person has their own story, and not every story is laced with malice.

I understand the fear. Yes, there is absolutely those who who come with extreme violence and deceit. These are not just imaginary political talking points; they’re real valid concerns. Sadly, many have lost their lives because of the lack of effective management. There are dangers, and they cannot be ignored.

Yet…this is not the only truth.

There are also parents who brought their children here simply praying for peace. There are families who have been here for decades – settled into life, raising children who know no other home. Mothers and Fathers working 2 and 3 jobs each just to survive. Teaching their kids to love a flag that doesn’t fully claim them. They’ve conformed to our culture, contributed to our communities, and done good in the shadows of a system that not only takes them for granted, but also never welcomed them.

There are good hearts doing good work – they have even been embraced as friends and family amongst us – yet, now they are being ripped away from one another – as if their humanity doesn’t matter.

We cannot afford to paint every person with the same brush. We are not called to solve every problem. However, we are called to see…and once you truly see…you can no longer remain silent. We are all stitched into this world with fragile seams – some torn by pain, some patched by grace, but we all belong to one fabric.

I’m torn.

I’m torn because I believe in borders …but not in barriers to compassion.

I’m torn because I believe in order…but not at the cost of orphaning the innocent.

I’m torn because I know we must protect our communities…but I also believe in protecting the heart of what this county claims to stand for.

I don’t pretend to understand what it’s like to sit in the president’s chair, or to lead a military unit. I don’t know the weight it takes to make the call on whether a raid should happen at a Home Depot or a clothing warehouse. But I do understand the ache of displacement, the trauma of separation…and Oh my heart – that blow carries a kind of collateral damage that many will never fully grasp until its them.

I do understand the desire to run from pain, from fear…to flee from anguish toward anything that feels like hope.

There has to be a better way

I believe there’s a more humane, more thoughtful, more spiritually-aligned way to navigate this.

One where policy doesn’t trump people…where integrity doesn’t bow to politics…where wisdom is used to heal, not harm.

I am not naive to the complexities…but neither am I willing to grow numb to them.

Silence in moments like these feels like complicity…and when you have a heart- and a voice – complicity is shameful.

A gentle plea

Maybe we can pause long enough to ask:

• What if it were me?
• What if I was the one fleeing danger with my children?
• What if I was the soldier ordered to step into a city I loved – armed with tear gas and rubber bullets?
• What if I was the mayor trying to find a voice in the noise?
• What if I was the child left alone, wondering where mom and dad went?
• What if I were the one selected and separated from my family to work and provide an income for their safety and freedom.

My prayer today is simple:

God, grant us a better way. One where compassion and clarity walk hand in hand. One where justice doesn’t lose its humanity, and where no one has to be torn at the seams just to feel safe.

Let us remember King Solomon and the two mothers – when both women claimed the same child, Solomon proposed cutting the baby in two. Only one mother stepped back in real love, prepared to give her child up, rather than lose him, or destroy him. That is what we are facing today. We are the ones holding the sword, and we must decide what love, justice , and humanity look like.

Before you judge their presence here, know what many have truly survived.

There was a man who promised his family a better life in the states.

Instead…he was taken from them.

His wife and children, his parents…were all placed in hostage. He was escorted to the border – marked, tracked, and told he must make it across safely and find work. Send income back every month and only after a number of years would he, and his family, know freedom again. I will spare you the outcome to his family – if he missed sending income. There are people already in the States….they are watching, monitoring, and managing all of this.

Yes, it sounds like a horror film – but it is real. It’s not a screenplay…it’s lived agony. It’s happening in the shadows of grocery trucks we pass on the road every day, beneath cracked drywall in quiet houses, in false compartments of department store delivery trucks that are backed into the store after hours.

Waiting to be picked up.

Waiting to be managed.

Praying for enough work to keep their families alive until debt is paid.

Until freedom is earned.

Until the nightmare ends.

This isn’t migration. It’s human trafficking. It exists at a disgusting, organized level that seeps into our cities, our highways, our parking lots, our neighborhoods…our communities…and still we remain blind to the truth because we refuse to look deeper beyond the surface layers.

I sobbed.

I sat there – a grown woman- and sobbed over my plate overflowing of comforts.

Realizing there was a horror of wide-scale proportions navigating our everyday lives, right under our noses. All while we – so preoccupied, so endlessly busy-busy-busy – remain focused within the trivial routines of or own comforts, our schedules, our shopping lists.

I shuddered at my ignorance.

I was horrified.

My face was hot with anger.

My tears flowed from a broken heart, too inexperienced and uneducated to carry the full weight of what I’d learned. My spirit swelled with raw humility and tender grace.

I felt helpless at the levels to which this is all being managed and by unimaginably high positions – so seamlessly beneath our noses – wrapped in a blanket of ignorance and complacency.

Oh were we to truly know the full weights and measures of such demise.

So before you scroll past, I invite you to pause…to breathe..to feel…and to ask yourself:

Am I seeing the full story, or just the side I’m comfortable with?

Please dont look away…if it affects you, LOOK DEEPER.

When a nation divides

We are a people split at the seams.

Some are crying out for stricter immigration laws – terrified by what they’ve been told, concerned for safety, longing for order.

Others are pleading for compassion and grace – seeing the humanity in the crisis, knowing the trauma many carry, longing for justice to wear skin.

Many more…are confused, frustrated, angry without exactly knowing why – because they’ve never been told the full story. They’ve only heard the headlines…not the horrors lurking below it’s surface.

We’re shouting over each other – instead of sitting beside one another. Reacting to symptoms – instead of healing the sickness beneath.

So the nation trembles. Not just from the weight of what’s happening at the border – but from the division swelling in every street now, every post, and at each protest.

What would grace do here?

Never underestimate the power of heart and grace.

How can we hold truth and tenderness together. Because THAT…that is where true change begins…. in the hearts that refuse to harden.

So…what might that change look like?

Maybe we don’t need to agree on every policy. Most likely, we never will…but we can agree that people deserve to be seen. We can agree that families deserve dignity. That fear should never be the gatekeeper of grace.

So here’s a better way – just a few thoughts to start, because I have always said, “Do not present a problem, if you have no solution.”

• Secure borders without shattered families.
  • Protection doesn’t have to mean division,
• Clearer, more compassionate pathways to citizenship.
  • Let’s not make desperation the only option.
• More community-based support and vetting.
  • Local solutions often carry the heart national policy forgets.
• A pause before judgment. A conversation before condemnation.
  • Listen to names. Hear the stories.

1. Create Family-First Immigration Protocols
   • The pain: Families being seperated, or worse yet, lost in the system.
     • Develop “Family Unity Units” that prioritize keeping parents and children together during any legal proceedings.
     • Assign trauma-informed caseworkers whose job isn’t just law – but care.
     • Let children NEVER be placed in adult detention centers. EVER.
2. Establish Compassionate Entry Points
   • The pain: People crossing in desperation because no safe legal option exists. A better way:
     • Create regional intake centers in neighboring countries (Mexico, Guatemala, etc.) where families can apply for asylum safely.
     • Use local NGOs and faith-based groups to provide food, shelter, education, and legal resources before they cross.
3. Fast-Track “Good Faith” Applicants
   • The pain: Those who have lived here for decades in peace, helping communities but still hiding in fear. A better way:
     • Create a “Good Faith Residency Pathway” for immigrants who’ve been here 10+ years, have no criminal record, and are actively working or volunteering.
     • Include community testimonials as part of their case review.
     • This honors contribution while ensuring transparency.
4. Trauma Recovery Support for Displaced Families
   • The Pain: The invisible wounds of being ripped from everything known. A better way:
     • Offer mental health care in native language at intake.
     • Pair newly arrived families with “Compassioate Companions” – volunteer mentors or churches who help them navigate daily life. (school, jobs, etc.).
     • Teach healing alongside housing.

Let it begin with me

Maybe I can’t solve the entire system. Maybe you can’t either, but we can see, we can feel, we can refuse to look away.

Maybe that’s where real change starts – not in the shouting, not in the policies, but in the quiet decision of one heart – to stay tender…when it would be easier to harden.

So what do we do now?

We listen longer. We love deeper. We lean toward grace, not because it’s easy – but because it’s the only thing strong enough to carry truth and hope at once.

Let our policies reflect dignity.

Let our voices reflect mercy.

Let our homes reflect welcome.

Let it begin with me.

Let it begin with you.

Let it begin…now.

Because no one should have to be torn at the seams to feel safe.

The world may never change overnight. But we can begin…right here, right now, with open eyes and a willing heart. Rising in truth, standing in the unity of compassion and grace.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

Tina N. Campbell | Scribed In Light