Sorry for the late blog entry, I am beginning to realize how terrible I am at keeping up with this thing, but anyways I’ll do my best to catch everyone up!!
The last time I posted a blog I was in Nicaragua and since then I have switched continents and lived in two more countries. The first country we visited in Asia was Thailand.
For this month, our ministry was in the red light district with the women who work in the bars. I’ll admit I had my expectations when I came into this month. I expected to see drugged women who looked enslaved and mistreated, but the first night I walked through the red light district, I was shocked. It looked just like home. There were about thirty bars in the district with pool tables and drink specials. Men were in the bars talking to women at the tables and playing pool. The women looked happy. The women looked like they wanted to be there. They looked like a lot of the women in American bars.
Our ministry description for the month was simply to befriend these women and show them God’s love. So, in teams of three that’s exactly what we did! We spent time getting to know them. We took them out to dinner, to the lake, to get massages, and anywhere else just to spend time with them. We laughed and danced with them. We went shopping and spent evenings in the markets. They shared their lives with us and we shared ours. They became our friends.
It amazed me how similar I am to these women. We live on opposite sides of the planet, speak a different language, celebrate different holidays, but we all liked the same things! We all liked to dance and be silly. We enjoyed talking about the same things and the same movies. We all hoped to be married with a beautiful family one day. And as time went on, I realized an even deeper connection.
The women working in these bars and soliciting themselves for sex are simply women who long to provide for their families and to be loved. They are women who have been hurt in the past and have lost their sense of value. They fill the hole left by abandonment with alcohol and money, but at the heart of it, they desire love and security. They are lost in the lies of pleasure and Earthly desires. These women hold onto the hopes that a man will come along and fill that hole. They long for a man to find them desirable enough to save from this life and struggle to fit someone else’s idea of desirable so they can be loved, accepted, and cared for.
But, the problem is man is not capable. The hole in each of these women’s’ hearts is Cod-shaped. God longs after these women and desires to be their security. He cries to show them their value and worth. He wants to pour into each one of His precious daughters.
And as I spent time with these women, I realized the desires God has for each of them are the same desires God has for ME! He desires to comfort me better than any man could. He wants to provide security and safety. He longs for me to find value and worth in His arms! What a beautiful thing to learn. What a blessed daughter am I?
But just because God is longing to be those things, does not guarantee they are accepted. A relationship is always two-sided. God desires to be my security and safety, but do I continue to worry about my career path and finances? He longs to comfort me, but do I continually long for a man to care for me? He longs to give me value and worth, but do I look to others for affirmation? He wants all these things for me and they are sitting on the table, but am I delighting in the gifts of the Lord? He desires only good things for me, but it is two-sided. Am I accepting and walking in those good things?
God desires good things for each one of His daughters. The only thing keeping us from acceptance, love and security is ourselves. God has extended all of these things to us; the only step left is to walk in that love. Thank you, Jesus!!
