First of all, I want you to know I asked for permission to share this story from the individual herself. She told me it was okay. Second of all, I am changing her name for her protection. We’ll call her Ruth. Any pictures I post will have her eyes blurred out, for her protection, and the story I’m about to tell is from my perspective. (All names have been changed to protect the individuals)
“You’re going to be doing bar ministry.” They told us. “You’ll be walking the street, going into bars with the intention of getting girls off the dancing stage and into school.”
What does that even look like, I wondered. How is this going to work? Is it healthy for my squad mates and myself to go into the girly bars? Especially the guys, and with our parents?
God, you know best, and you have blessed this ministry, I trust you. Wipe Every Tear.
We walked to the end of the street, lured into a bar by Katie. Very quickly she revealed to us, “I’m a lady boy.” What a way to break the ice of bar ministry.
We visited a few more bars that night but the story of Ruth fast forwards to the next morning.
I’m up early enough to head to the lobby for quiet time. It seems like no matter how late I go to bed, I wake up when the sun rises. Turns out my mom is awake as well and finds me, explaining a girl one group talked to the night before is at the hotel and wants to know more about this opportunity with Wipe Every Tear. Of course we take the time to sit down and have breakfast with her, along with Becky, an amazing, Filipino, woman of God that works for Wipe Every Tear. Ruth starts sharing, she couldn’t sleep the night before because she was so excited to meet us in the morning to learn more. She was so nervous with excitement she couldn’t eat breakfast until she heard everything. As she sat there sharing about her life, I knew she was going to take this opportunity to walk off the bar top and into the arms of God.
She was already a Christian. She knows who God is, she knows scripture. Ruth used to work at the mall, she met a boy who became her boyfriend and when he found out she was a virgin, he encouraged her to work in the bars because he knew she could get a good chunk of money for her virginity, a little less than $3,000. That was two years ago. She never worked for more than 3 months at a time, when she ran out of money, she went back. Still, in the back of her head were the verses she memorised as a child. She started spouting them off to us with a smile on her beautiful face.
Silence fell over the table as she would stop chatting to process what her life has been like over the past two years. A few times she broke out in tears, full of excitement and anticipation of what this change meant for her. I, of course followed suit and cried with her. She turned to me with a concerned look on her face, “I have tattoos. Is that okay?” “Of course, I have 3 tattoos!” I replied. “But I have them all over my side and back, they’re big.” It’s okay, God loves you. After some more processing, “I’ve done really dirty things though, I’m so dirty.” “Ruth, Jesus loves you and God see’s you as clean.” She continues to tell me more about her life, revealing she’s won a booty shaking contest before, showing me pictures from the night she won nearly 700 dollars. I could tell she wasn’t proud of the pictures, so I told her she didn’t have to be that person any more, that she wasn’t that person any more. Her eyes lit up as I could tell she believed it. “I’m going to delete all these pictures! And I’m deleting my Facebook, starting a new one!”
Ruth was so eager to start her new life that she didn’t want to leave us. She wanted to spend the rest of the day with us, and she did. She came out that night to do ministry with us. She went to her home and packed all her things with a couple of my squad mates, she collected her last pay check from the bar, slept in the hotel with us so she wouldn’t miss the bus in the morning. She was ready, she ran full force into the arms of her Father.
I could learn a thing or two from Ruth. How often do I see how dirty I am but want to hold on to it with a little part of me? Even if it’s my pinky toe, I still want to say I’ve got a bit of control over it. Why do I find it so difficult to run full force into the arms of my Father? Control. It’s a lesson God has been showing me over and over on this race. I pretend to run into His arms but I don’t allow him to fully embrace me. I say I’m giving things over to Him but I hold onto them with a closed fist.
Is there anything you think is too dirty for God? Is there something you’ve done that you think isn’t forgivable? It isn’t too dirty. God see’s you as pure. You’re sins are white as snow. Confess and accept the free gift he is offering, simple as that.
Isaiah 1:18
“Come, let us discuss this,”
Says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
they will be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
they will be like wool…”
