I'm in Love with A Stripper....

It's true...I am in love with a stripper, two strippers actually, the other day I decided I was going to camp-out at Panera and get some work done, well this particular Panera tends to be full of people I know and this day it wasn't any different. I ran into a few different groups of friends there and each of them asking about my new adventures and one of them prying about one of my latest blog entries, more specifically the one about "J" well I began retelling the story with so much excitement that I got a little too excited and said pretty loudly, can you believe it one night she's selling her body and the next she's found new life (sometimes when I get excited I think the world needs to know what I am exited about), well it made the girls at the next table perk up, and I could see them out of the corner of my eye hanging on every word of my story.

Fast forward 15 minutes when my friends walked away, one of the girls leaned over towards me and she said, "I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but I overheard you talking about a girl selling her body, was she a stripper?" I looked oddly at the girl and said..."uh no actually she was a prostitute, why?" At this point I got a little worried that these girls might know "J" and were going to get upset that I was telling her story to all the world, but instead these girls leaned over and confessed to me that there were strippers.

Apparently it all started with a need for money and then eventually a need to feel needed and "loved", so the girls looked into going to an amateur night at a strip club in Baltimore, and now has landed them both dancing on "The Block" in Baltimore. The truth is that typically one thing leads to another and the girls find themselves addicted to some kind of something. Both of these girls have a drug problem, neither are using needles but they both have a drug issues, justifying it by sayings, "it's what helps get me through it," Do you want to guess how old these girls are? One of them is in her late teens and the other is just recently 20, apparently where they dance, they are both part of the "Barely Legal" set.

As I listened to these girls tell their story, wondering why in the world they would be so open to me a complete stranger, they eventually planted themselves at my table and we had a long conversation about their lives, they both graduated high school and started to attend college, but not surprisingly both girls have stopped going to college and are taking their clothes off for money, they both live in houses that are paid for by a "sugar daddy."

One of the girls told me about how her mom died when she was sophomore in high school and her dad never healed and so she pretty much got herself through high school while raising her little brothers and then took her dad to court and fought for them and then left she now raises her brothers and pays someone to babysit them on nights when she dances, the other told me about a drug addicted dad and a mom in the military who was deployed for many years of their lives, both of these girls suffer from abandonment and have been running into the arms of many men who "care" about them, one of them will tell you she's ready to give up dancing and find a purpose for her life, but she doesn't know how, the other will tell you with everything in her and as honest as she can be, that she needs the money and feels like she needs to continue dancing to be able to survive financially.

My heart shattered the longer I sat there with them, but the longer I sat there the more in love I fell with them, I was actually headed to Fusion, and boldly invited them both to come, they both gave me the answer I figured they would, a big NO! I knew they wouldn't want to come to church and when I asked them why, I got the "God can't love me while I am doing this," answer.

Which just opened up a huge door of opportunity to share with these girls, that YES they are loved...and that they can do you church and they can be restored. Eventually the girls told me they needed to go and get ready for work, however not before asking for my phone number, and asking if they could call me sometime, of course I said yes. I promised that I would pray for the girls, I also promised if they ever changed their mind about going to church, I would love to bring them to church with me.

As these girls walked away I couldn't help but think of a song I had heard earlier that morning called Dancing for the Groceries, and how we don't know every story of every girl who's on that stage, pole or street corner, and for some like one of my new friends she's taking her clothes off because its easy money to help take care of her siblings she's raising. This is real life, both of these girls said to me, what would I put on a job application for prior experience, stripper? They are right, what would they put? And if they were honest would they be hired? As the girls walked away, I prayed that they would be delivered from this lifestyle, this vicious cycle, that they would find the purpose for their lives, they would go to college and that they would know that God loves them, dancing on a pole or sitting in an office his love is so much bigger than they could ever imagine.

This morning I got a call from one of the girls, we chatted and she thanked me for giving her hope and not being upset she listened in on my conversation. Her phone call was a reminder that God can and will use us anywhere, we never know who's listening in and who's going to be touched through our words and actions, so I will leave you with this verse from Matthew 5:14 that reminds us once we are of Christ we cannot be hidden,"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden."