My arms were wrapped tightly around my knees in the Penang Movie Theater as the tears spilled down my cheeks. On screen Anne Hathaway’s dirt-stained face grimaced in pain while she gave her body to a drunken harbor hand. Abuse after abuse had been inflicted on her character in Les Miserables as she struggled to keep her daughter off the streets. Starting with her hair and followed by her teeth, greedy townsmen ripped her beauty from her until finally in the pit of wretched desperation she sold herself in prostitution.
"I had a dream my life would be so much different from this hell I'm living in…"
“Don’t they know they are making love to one already dead?”
Her voice rang across the theater.
As this scene unfolded I found myself drenched in my own salty tears. While crying is rare for me during a movie, the eery familiarity of Anne Hathaway’s character struck a deep cord within.
I had seen her before.
Just a few nights ago in the drizzling rain…
She was sitting on a stool in a dimly lit alley near the Red Light District of George Town. A simple white blouse covered her frail form and contrasted her dark Malaysian skin. As she looked up at me I was struck by how natural, almost innocent her beauty was. She didn’t seem to belong there – a sweet, lovely face outside a filthy brothel where giant rats chased each other across the street.
Kneeling beside her we asked if she needed prayer. The sadness in her dark eyes spoke of deep heartache. She nodded and lifted her arm to show us a twisted and broken bone explaining that she had been in an accident but didn’t have money to do anything about it. She also recently found out that she has a hole in her lung and needs surgery. Meanwhile her husband is in jail and there is no one in this city willing to help or take her in. As she accounted misery after misery, my heart twisted inside my chest. I wondered what had been the last straw that drove her to this brothel, waiting on a stool to be purchased for the evening.
I clutched her thin little hands in my own, and as we prayed, I could physically feel the weight of Jesus’ love for her. His gentle compassion, his righteous anger, his pained heartache, and his overwhelming desire to take her away pressed in and surrounded my soul. Even after we finished praying I couldn’t let go of her hands and the words started tumbling out. I wasn’t sure what I was saying or if she could even understand me, but I couldn’t contain what I felt for this woman. She had to know. She had to know how precious she is, how loved she is. She had to know there is a way out, that freedom is available to her. Grace and redemption are waiting for her.
As I tried to explain this, little by little a childlike smile crept across her face. Hope started to peek its way through.
Then suddenly her eyes flickered upward and instantly her smile was gone. As my eyes turned to where she was looking, I saw a large man staring down at the woman with the ugliest glare of anger I had ever seen. The woman jumped to her feet, apologizing repeatedly to “Uncle.” She whispered that she had to go and followed the man inside the brothel as he slammed the gate behind her.
When she came out again, her face looked dead. The last I saw her that night she was talking to a man on a motorcycle, masking the disgust of what she was about to do.
My heart twisted in grief for her.
But not just for her, also for the man on the motorcycle who found love by purchasing it on the streets. For Uncle who was trapped in a world of anger and hatred. For the woman's husband sitting on a cold jail floor condemned as a criminal.
Each of them living in a cycle of misery, being abused and abusing others.
Meanwhile, salvation is waiting for them. Extravagant grace is just around the corner. And they know nothing of it. Abundant life is right there,
but they need someone to tell them about it.
“Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” asks the Lord (Isaiah 6:8).
