Travel back with me three months ago when in Thailand serving in a coffee shop run by Burmese refugees. I met a group of ladies from Indiana who were on a mission’s trip for a week. Our team joined together with theirs for a worship night. The next day, one of the ladies came up to me and said, “Katie, during our worship night, I kept hearing a word from the Lord to speak over you. Would you mind if I tell you what it was?” “Of course,” I replied, “I would love to hear it.” She told me that she kept hearing the word pure, & that the Lord will bless the pure of heart. I laughed and told her, “That’s funny, because my name actually means purity.” She couldn’t believe it, saying that she instantly had goosebumps.
Ever since that day, the concept of purity has been on my mind. The bible tells us that wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure. I know I sure would like to have this kind of wisdom, so I began noticing ways the Lord instructs us to be pure and blameless.
Now join me in my journey as I reflect on how purity has shaped women in today’s world. I know so many women who do not FEEL pure, but instead feel shame and guilt after disobeying the Lord. Some women have had situations forced upon them making them feel empty and dry, knowing they will never have a purity or innocence ever again. But here is what I’m learning. When we are saved by Christ, He MAKES us pure. We are pure through Jesus as He wipes away areas of our life that we never thought could be made whole again.
As I researched purity on the Internet, the symbol of a lotus flower continued to appear. As I looked further into the meaning of the lotus flower, I discovered the lotus to represent beauty and purity. If you look at a lotus from first glance, you will see a tall, beautiful flower that stands firm in nature. What many people may not know is that a lotus grows in the mud. It is born in the mud and raised in the mud. But, it eventually rises above the muddy waters and grows one petal at a time turning into the elegant flower that we all know. Now that is powerful symbolism, am I right?
The lotus flower has been imprinted in my mind as I constantly think about how the Lord makes us pure. One day in the Philippines, I was sitting with my team at my host families home. While thinking about the lotus flower, our host brought us a folder of biographies of girls who live on one of the local streets. Our host told us that we would be providing a one day and one night camp for these street girls, so if we wanted, we could review their life stories. I opened the folder, and saw story after story of young women struggling. Drugs, men, abandonment, pride. Read a few stories below to get a better understanding of what I was feeling while reading through these words (not including actual names).
This 13 year old girl lives on her own. She has 3 sisters and 2 brothers. 3 of them live on the streets and 2 of them live with their parents. They are married and have a rental house. They do not take care of her, and she rarely sees them. She stopped going to school in the 3rd grade because she wanted to be with her friends on the street. She hopes of being a teacher one day, but she knows that the only way she will be able to achieve that is if she goes back to school, which she thinks she will do at some point. She started the solvent (a drug) at a young age. It makes her numb and dizzy, along with really sad. She says that she only does it because her friends do it, but she wants to stop one day. In order to get money for food and the solvent, she begs in the streets. At night, she sleeps on the streets with her friends.
The girl on the right is 14 years old. When she was 8 years old, the home that her family lived in burned down. She now lives on the street. Her parents, or her mother, is not involved in her life. When she was 12 years old, she was accused of stealing and sent to prison. She was there for 1 year and 4 months. During her time there, her father died. She started using the solvent when she was 12 years old because of the influence from her friends. She gets money for solvent from her friends as well.
These are just 2 of many, many stories recorded of young girls living on the streets. Some got there by choice, and some got there by situations that happened to them. Either way, these women need the love of our Savior. And then the imagery of the lotus flower hit me again while reading through these stories. “Lord, how will these young girls ever feel pure after being raped in the streets and/or specifically choosing earthly pleasures? Will they EVER truly feel loved, seen, valued, beautiful, pure?” I asked the Lord this question, and he answered through the flower. These girls are in the mud right now. They have seen things that no human ever should. They have been through experiences that hurt to even think about. Yet, there is hope for them to not only feel pure but to actually be pure, and that is through Jesus Christ. He can help them grow one petal at a time into something beautiful. The lotus flower is even more beautiful because of where it grew out of, just like each girl can be when they rise up out of their circumstance.
I began tearing up sitting in a comfortable chair thinking about each of these girls, and knowing I would meet all of them the next day. Part of me was extremely excited, feeling lucky that I had the opportunity to make these girls feel safe, if only for a day. The other part of me felt scared knowing where they not only came from but would have to go back to. Regardless, the next day, all the girls were picked up off the side of the street, and brought to our ministry site. We had fresh clothes waiting for them. Each girl walked in, and their walls were up. They barely made eye contact, and didn’t say much. The girls had lice and other bugs crawling through their scalp, so they each were able to take showers and use a lice treatment. They put on new clothes, showered, brushed their teeth, and were already much more willing to talk to us. We painted their nails, and slowly they started opening up more and more. We dressed them up with fun hats and headbands, and had a fashion show. They ate a full meal, had a bonfire full of songs and testimonies, and ended the night snuggling under soft blankets while watching a movie to fall asleep to. I sat awake at night, staring at the girls, noticing how young and small they each looked. In age, these girls were young, but their eyes told a different story. Earlier during the day, the girls would grab my phone taking selfies left and right – sticking their tongue rings out and middle fingers blazing through the air. But here at night, as they fell asleep one by one, they just looked like normal teenagers. Oh, how I wanted to keep them there in that church, where they could be safe and comfortable forever. I stayed up praying over their resting souls that God would protect them and wake them up for a life they could have with Him.
The next day, after our camp was over, Ellen (my teammate) and I decided to ride with the girls on their way back to where they came from on the streets. We wanted to see exactly where they were growing up and what the streets looked like. We piled 19 people in one mini van, and drove 2 hours away to where these girls had grown up. We pulled over on the side of the highway, and the girls recognized a tree that they typically sleep under with a large group. I got out of the van, and the girls piled out without any goodbyes. It was like their innocence was instantly stripped away as they strutted their newly polished nails and clean clothes on “their” street. Different men and teenage boys came up to the van, looking at me up and down, trying to start a conversation. The girls were pulling my arms in different directions. I got back in the van, feeling so unsettled, and watched the girls as we simply drove away.
My heart sank. These girls LIVE on that street. One of the 9 girls who stayed with us was pregnant and her precious baby will grow up there too. Imagine the fear of men, or women for that matter, coming to rape you in the night, as you long for warmth and safety. Imagine knocking on car windows for people to spare you a few dimes, just to spend on food or even drugs to feel satisfied for just a moment. All I could do, was shut my eyes with tears falling down, asking the Lord to provide a way out.
The thing is most of these girls, whether I like to admit it or not, have chosen this lifestyle. They have decided to leave their families because of peer pressure from friends and the influence of drugs. At early ages such as 6 years old, these girls decided to gain independence by figuring life out on their own. But these girls are too young to know what is best for them, and to know that they deserve a better life. If they could only see that the Lord could provide a love for them that would outweigh the love of any one night stand, and if they could only see what an education could do for them rather than a drug that satisfies for only a moment.
So, I beg each of you to stop, think, and research how YOU can help get kids off the streets – in the Philippines, around the world, in America, everywhere. I don’t have all the answers, but all I know is there has to be a way to help. For now, I do know that I can pray, and I believe in a God who performs miracles. I believe He can save these girls, and I believe He can bring restoration and purity to each of their precious souls.
And maybe you at home have felt this way as well. Maybe you have felt like you can never be made whole, never be completely pure because of what you have done or because of what has happened to you – but you know what, our Lord forgives. He wipes clean our mistakes and our shame. He has died for these exact things, so that we can walk in FREEDOM and in PURITY. Join me in believing that and for praying over those who need to believe it too.
