The Desire for Love

The Lord doesn't ask for much-- He just asks for all we have. And yet He provides all we need.

This novel idea has become more of a reality to me in the past two weeks than in my entire life thus far. As a recent college graduate going into full-time ministry funded by support, I oftentimes questioned God as to how I would be provided for, yet there is a burning desire in my heart to provide some reflection of the Lord to others as well. I didn't know it would be possible. But God knew-- and He did it through a 26-year-old stripper.

I knew some about Jane before I met her. I had been interacting and praying for strippers in Athens ever since the Lord stirred my heart for purity in this city. Hanging out with them I always felt the same unmet need hidden behind the facade of strength and seductions: pure, unconditional, and God-given acceptance of the core person inside. So when my friend Jacob said he met a stripper when her car broke down outside his work, I began to pray for her. He offered to pay to get her car fixed but she never called back. We didn't know if we'd see her again. But God knew.

Leaving our prayer chapel last Thursday night, we ran into Jane--literally--we almost ran over her. She was walking right by us as we were pulling out of the parking lot. Jacob stopped us, "Hey- that's Jane!" As we rolled down the window, Jonathan called to her and she turned, inquiring as to who was calling her.

He said, "It's Jonathan."
She asked again and he repeated himself.
"I'm Jonathan--a friend of Jacobs."

She later told us that the night before we met her she was laying in her bed and the name Jonathan kept going through her head.

"It was like something outside of myself," she said. " And when he said my name, it was like deja vu."

She didn't know why that name kept stirring in her heart that night--but God knew. He was calling he, and he used Jonathan's name and voice to do it.

Right after we met, we took Jane into the chapel and talked to her for a bit. Minutes into the conversation needs began to surface. First, the physical needs became evident: she was hungry, and tired, and needed a shower and place to stay. Slowly, timidly, the deeper needs of her heart began to surface. She was lonely. She was tired of the constant critics and judgmental glances. She just wanted to be herself--and be loved.

I knew the Lord wanted to do more for Jane than just provide her a warm meal for that night. Having an extra bedroom in my apartment, I prayerfully decided to open up that part of my home to her. Wisdom was key in this decision, ans I don't suggest doing something so precarious unless you have clarity from the Lord and a good support system. Thankfully, I have both.

Jane and I began to get to know each other. She was very childlike in some ways, yet she had experienced more in her 26 years of living than most people experience in a lifetime. She told me about her dreams: she wanted to get married--her ring would be wooden with a heart in the middle of it and her husband would ride a horse into the ceremony and then jump off and marry her. She loved to paint, and she wanted to sell her paintings "so other people could enjoy them." She told of her dark days and the times she felt like giving up. "I was thinking about killing myself with rat poisoning before I met you," she said. "But I guess since you really care about me and love me I must be worth something right?" Jane is worth more than she can even comprehend right now.

Jane and I did girly things as well. We talked about boys while giving each other facials, and popped popcorn while watching Pride and Prejudice. When I would spend time with the Lord, she would sit on my bed and listen as I read verses from the Bible. "What is God like?" she'd ask. Combining the 1 John principle that God is love and the ever-so-famous 1 Corinthians verses on love, the Lord began to paint a picture of Himself through those spoken words on the page.

"God is patient, God is kind. God does not envy, or boast. He is not proud or rude. He is not self-seeking. God does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. He always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. God never fails."

Jane had never known a God like that. To her, God was sexist, and God was unfair. God had allowed her to live on and off the streets for almost 10 years. Horrible things were done to her in the name of God. To Jane, God equaled everything scary and hurtful. She didn't know who God was or how much He loves her. But God knew--and He was set on showing her.

The paradox-surrounding ministry is that God oftentimes uses availability much more powerfully than ability. I had no clue how to help Jane be open to a God whom she was deathly afraid of. All I knew was that His perfect love has been driving out the fear in my heart, and His "kindness leads us to repentance." His love is what compels us to change, and so I began asking God for the grace to love Jane as He does. Ans He began to provide it. Psalm 37:4 says, "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." I had never thought I would have such a strong desire to love, but God began tot show me the true meaning of that verse. It doesn't say, "delight yourself in the Lord and he will FULFILL the desires of your heart," it says He will "GIVE you the desires of your heart." He began to give me a new, overwhelming desire in my heart to see this woman truly free and walking in confidence and love.

A main way this was going to come about was through prayer. The Lord laid it on the hearts of those in our ministry to pray for Jane, and they interceded for hours daily. They were incredibly faithful in prayer and helped out with practical things as well. Some dedicated a room in their house to be an intercession room to pray for Jane. They literally began to pray for her salvation into existence. God wanted it all along;He just gave us the privilege of taking part in the process so we could rejoice as He does.

This past Sunday at church pastor Vic was talking about how to meet the needs of others. Jane and I sat quietly in the back corner that morning and I asked her whom we could be praying for in her life. We came up with a few names and that night, as I began to pray as we always did every night before bed, she began to pray as well. She asked God to forgive her for hurting a person on our list, and she thanked God for the people in her life. I hugged her and told her I loved her and headed to bed.

As I lay on my bed, my heart was stirring. I couldn't get the thought out of my spirit that God wanted Jane to be His...tonight. Less than a minute later, she knocked on my door. She asked me a quick, nonchalant question and then I asked her a powerful one: "Jane, do you believe God is real?"

Her words pierced me. "I think I do. Because if you could love me like you do and your friends do and you guys believe in Him, I think He is real. I guess I was just never inspired by religion before this," she said.

You see, Jane didn't need a sermon. She needed a living reflection of the love of God. Jane needed arms to hug her, and hands to provide for her, and hearts turned towards her simply because she was a child in need of love--as we all are.

Jane and I talked about Jesus and what it means to really be His. A few minutes later, Jane prayed, "God, I used to believe in you because everyone told me to and it was how I was raised, and then I didn't believe in you because of all the bad stuff that happened to me, but now I want to believe for myself. I don't really know how it all works, but I want to believe." She didn't know how, but God knew.

A few minutes later we were reading in her favorite book of mine, Apples of Gold. A quote stuck out and we decided to memorize it:"I put my faith in God, not in my faith." It was perfect for Jane. She need someone solid to hold onto, someone whose character never changes, someone whose love isn't fake or seductive, and someone who affirms who she really is. It's not a difficult task for God, He was the one who created her with every detail of her being-- of course He delights in it!

After we prayed and Jane accepted Christ, we rejoiced in the fact that we'll be in Heaven together someday. She looked up at me with her big brown eyes and asked me an unassuming question:"Has anything ever happened to you where you just knew that God was real?"

Without hesitation, my heart burst with joy as I looked her in the eyes and truthfully declared," You, Jane. You."

Free to Love

Her fragile hands were shaking as she nervously fumbled through her worn-down purse at the airport pay phone. When words tripped out of her mouth, I realized the unraveled black threads hanging from her purse were actually a mirror into her state of being. She looked up at me puzzled. Her strange demeanor was clearly a reaction to the sudden self-consciousness falling upon me as I approached her. Pushing it aside, I walked closer.

"Can I help you?" I asked, not completely sure what I was doing there or why I was now side-by-side with a total stranger at a phone booth in the airport. Minutes before our meeting, I was informed that she needed help so I thought, 'What's there to lose?' and headed her direction.

"Well..." she looked down, "I'm here from Ohio, and waiting for someone to pick me up but I don't know who," she replied, scanning my frame with suspicion. "I am looking to find Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior," she added quickly, in one matter-of-fact breath.

Taken aback, I hesitated. "You don't know who is picking you up from the airport or where you'll be going, but you want to find Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?" I asked.

Yeeeessss," she said, slowly and condescendingly, as if I should've been aware of how 'normal' her request actually was.

Ok...well..."I said. "I think I can help you with that," I offered. "But first, let's talk about what that means, ok?"

Although this opportunity seemed to be an evangelists dream, I sensed there was much more to the story.

"Umm....are you sure you can help me?" she interrupted my thoughts. "I mean how do you know for sure?" She wasn't about to take my answer as fact until it was proven true in some immeasurable way.

"I can tell you this for sure: If you're looking for Jesus," I started, " I guarantee you'll find Him." I smiled and motioned away from the phone toward the atrium. "Let's head this way," I said.

Her legs were tiny, and my steps outnumbered hers two to one. From the moment I saw her, with her black hooded jacket wrapped tight around her head, her small speckled ballerina shoes, and her precocious demeanor, my heart was drawn to her. I desperately wanted to pour out a bit of God's love to her, so we walked - me first... then her a few steps behind. I knew at any moment she could turn away or stop, so I prayed desperately from a deep place of love. I silently hoped my prayers would somehow pull her alongside me with that love.

We were still strangers at that moment, walking toward the airport food court to discuss her life and future. Everything was moving smoothly when suddenly she stopped.

Before I even has the chance to turn around, I heard it. The sound of her sobs came from deep within her belly, and as I turned around I noticed a stream of tears flowing from her dark, swollen eyes. In the middle of the airport, she was doubled over and weeping. As I turned around and leaned in to ask her what was happening, she collapsed into my arms. Her tears spoke of deep pain that had been locked away for God knows how long. Now, with her tears soaking into my sleeve, she was not only exposed, but her brokenness was poured out right in front of me.

Caught in a fit of emotion, she suddenly switched gears. Abruptly, she stopped and became aware of her surroundings. She stood up, looked around, and mechanically quit crying almost as quickly as she had started. The sequence of events reminded me of an unexpected tornado. It hit with incredible force, but now the atmosphere was calm. The storms had ceased, but the damage had already been done. I had seen a real, outward expression of her pain: and I wasn't about to leave her in it.

For the first time, I spoke to her by name. "Maria, what is going on?" I gently asked her. " What are you afraid of, Maria?" Begging her to give me a glimpse into her world, I came to realized that the door was locked again, so I know I had to wait.

We walked over to the food court and she began to tell me stories about her life. "I'm in Atlanta from Ohio on Spring Break," she said. "I'm visiting a girl friend, but she's NOT my friend anymore," she stated emphatically. Her voice was soaked in ambivalence, and she spoke directly from her fractured stream of consciousness.

When I finally began to understand what had transpired over the last few days of Maria's "vacation" in Atlanta, questions came to my mind as quickly as her now-dried tears.

I began slowly. "Maria... did someone hurt you this weekend? Did someone hurt your feelings?" I asked.

"Yes..." she said in a coy whisper.

"Did someone hurt you physically?" I continued. I knew exactly what the point of the conversation was now, but I didn't want to push it. Maria was opening up but I knew that at any moment she could succumb to her fear and shut off once more.

"Yes... I guess they did hurt me," she said, her eyes darkening at the realization of her wounds. She fidgeted with her hands, and her eyes flickered with the remembrance of evil as she traveled back to her place of pain.

"Did guys make you do things you didn't want to do with other guys?" I continued, coating my words in tenderness. She stopped, looked around the airport and suddenly pulled away. "SHHHHHH" she hissed, with such intensity that I jumped back. "I can't talk to you about it now; I'll tell you when we leave this place."

I spoke her name out loud and asked her one more question that I knew would solidify the core of my inquiries, "There's danger involved, isn't there, Maria?"

She didn't have to respond. The two conspicuous men "conveniently" following us as we moved our conversation from seat to seat provided me with all the answers I needed at this point in time. One was quietly discussing details of what seemed to be some sort of business transaction on his telephone, but as I moved closer, his tone quickly changed and he immediately started speaking in code.

"Oh yeah," she responded anyway, staring directly into my eyes before she turned and walked away.

She looked over her should with an expression that said, " Come on," so we made our way to a new location and settled into the familiar routine: me asking questions, Maria presenting a need and then closing up with the option for help was presented.

How may times do we do this with you, God? I asked myself. How many times do I seek your help and then run away from it because I'm not sure if I can trust you, or it seems too good to be true, or it takes too long, or... or...

The questions were not meant to be answered. At least not now. In this moment, the questions were there to keep me close to Maria's heart. After all, Jesus experienced what we do in order to relate to us as we are.

We continued in our conversation, and began to paint a picture of hope for my new friend. I quietly told her, " I want to take you to a safe place, Maria. A place where no one will hurt you again."

She came to, and quickly glanced my way with a half-hearted smile. "How do you know for sure that they won't hurt me?" she turned and asked. Nothing was certain in her world, and her lack of control in mine made her extremely uneasy.

" I just know," I assured her. "But you're going to have to explain some things so I know the best place to take you," I said.

As I started plotting the possibilities of recovery homes where she could be transferred, my thoughts were interrupted with a gently nudging in my spirit. First things first, I felt the Holy Spirit gently whisper.

I grabbed Maria's hand and searched into her eyes. "You said you wanted to find Jesus, right?" I asked her.

"Yes," she said. If anything was certain for her, it was her knowledge that she needed a Savior. Her soul was crying out for someone or something that could save her from the nightmare she had been living. "I want to find Jesus," she said, but I don't want to force religion on anyone," she boldly informed me.

I smiled. "Who said anything about religion?" I joked."We're talking about a real person here. Last time I checked...Jesus is an actual person, right?"

She flipped me a sideways glance~and if I hadn't been so attentive to details, I would've missed the tiny glimpse of newfound interest that speckled her dark eyes...

"I think that's what makes Him so special, Maria. He is God, in the form of a real person. Someone we can relate to as humans," I said.

I could tell that she had heard this concept before but it didn't sink in until now. She looked up at me , slightly confused but clearly hopeful. She was beginning to turn away from the all-to-familiar lie she had been told that God is hidden somewhere inside the myriad of religious rules and "to-do" lists. She began to turn...towards truth.

I continued, "I don't know about you, but any rules, spoken or unspoken, that I have with my friends are only there to ultimately create a better relationship between the two of us."

She started to agree, opened her eyes, and looked up at me with a renewed innocence, but then the fear took hold again and resumed it's choking grip on her spirit.

Slightly frustrated with the back-and-forth pattern of her emotions, I asked God what was really going on.
I began to realize that the fear and perverted "love" she had experiences over the years had numbed her so deeply that "love" was now her newest four letter word of choice. In Maria's experience, openness to love led to vulnerability, and vulnerability, mishandled, let to exploitation.

However, in the midst of everything, I couldn't wait for her to invite Jesus into the mess. I knew that once He arrived, He would wreak havoc on her former way of thinking. Suddenly and without much warning, she would easily find herself in love with a person that just so happened to be the God of the Universe. Even more shocking that that, I knew Jesus wanted to connect her with the creator of all things, the Father, and give her a friend to walk through life with, the Holy Spirit. I wanted all these things for her, and more, but I knew we needed to move more slowly. Right now she had come to the realization she was free to receive love.

"Religion will suck the very life out of you," I continued with our conversation. "Following a set of rules cannot bring joy unless it is done from..."my voice trailed off. Although she was listening...her mind seemed to dance around the idea of love. It was as if "love" was a fragrance that touched her nostrils with its beautiful aroma...and then floated away with the air. I saw this battle in her eyes and softly reminded her, "Maria...the real reason to follow God's commandments is because your heart is responding to the love He pours out to you. It's never about doing...it's about being- and letting God fo all things through you," I whispered with purposeful intent.

She didn't seem completely convinced, but she was sure enough that she wanted to give it a try. "Ok, so what do I do? How do I find Him? And how do I know it works?"she asked.

"If you ask Him and believe that He'll help, He'll do the rest. That's all we can do: ask," I told the desperate girl now squeezing my hand tightly.

We bowed our heads and she began to speak to a God she was both afraid of and inexplicably drawn toward. She articulated her words, and spoke slowly and intentionally, as if the emphasis would somehow make her requests more real to God and solidify the cries of doubt within her own mind. We finished praying and she reached into her bag.

As she pulled out a notebook, some small pieces of scrap paper fell to the floor. She quickly grabbed them and passed the notebook my way. The pages were filled with phone numbers, job opportunities, scribbled reminders and page after page of poems. I opened the book up to a page in the middle. "Can I read this?" I asked.

"Sure," she said, thrusting the book fully into my hands then quickly turning her face away from me, as if she wanted to take a glimpse into her world but was not comfortable with how I may respond to it.

"What's another day? Does it really even matter? When will the light come into this darkness?" she wrote. The words read like a scripture verse without a resolution. Depictions of perversion hit my mind with force as I read these tiny pieces of her autobiography.

"Maria, these poems are so deep and powerful," I told her. "You are quite a poet!" I exclaimed.
"No..."she pulled back. "I mean...really? Do you really think so?" she asked, leaning in toward me and then away again like a slow-moving rocking chair.

"Yes!" I said, hoping my emphatic response would solidify doubt making it's way through her mind. "You know what though? What you just did...inviting Jesus into your heart...that brings light into all the dark places, and you don't have to live in darkness anymore," I told her. Peace began to fall upon her and we released hands. The police had made their way to the to the atrium now, but their lack of policy in handling trafficked victims kept them at a standstill. Maria wanted to leave with me. She wanted me to personally escort her to a safe place. The rare jewel of trust had been developed between us, and although she was still ambivalent in some ways, she had now tasted a small portion of the Father's love...and she knew what she wanted more.

As the suspicious men continued to circle us periodically, I was informed by the officer and a hotline director that I must leave the airport because of my safety (and Maria's) was now extremely compromised. If she left with me, she would be putting both herself and all other potential victims in danger due to high level security that must be maintained for victims of her particular description. She had to be transferred to safety in another way.

"Leave her my number," the kind lady on the other end of the hotline said, when I asked her what the next step was, "and tell her to call me if she wants to get out of the airport as soon as possible."
And with that, I knew it was my time to move forward. Placing the hotline number in her hands, I told Maria of the plan, reinforced the safety of staying near the police, gave her a bit of money and trusted her in the arms of the same God that had created such a precious meeting between the two of us just a few hours earlier. I left her less than 10 yards from where I found her, only this time, I knew she was no longer alone.

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