I am learning quickly my plans are NEVER supposed to be my own, Saturday was a jammed packed day for me, I was up and out of the house by 7:45 a.m., and knew that I wouldn't be returning home until at least midnight! It was a fun day full of two of my favorite set of twins, one of my favorite five-year old's and celebrating a beautiful bride to be! Well around midnight I head home and I really felt God speaking to my heart to just take a little detour off my route home and a detour I took, a 6.5 hour one to be exact!
As I drove down Wilkens Ave. I spotted a very pretty young girl, it was completely evident what she was doing on that corner in the wee hours of the morning, so I said a quick prayer, dug a pink bag out of my trunk and introduced myself, our conversation went a little like this:
Me: Hi, I am Colleen, I just wanted to give you this bag and remind you that you're loved.
J: You're kind of blowing up my spot right now...
Me: I know, it's kind of why I am here (with a smile!)
J: Well I need you to go, I'm waiting for someone (at this point she knows I know what's going on!)
Me: So what's so important that you need to be out here at 12:45 in the morning selling your body to a complete stranger?
You can only imagine where the conversation went from there, about 20 minutes into this conversation J says to me, "Look I don't want to do this, but I have no choice, and that's my "date" coming," that's the point that I interjected a bold statement, that kind of caught her off guard, so who are you going with tonight, the man who doesn't care about you, or me who will take you somewhere and attempt to get you some help?
I wish in these moments of my life you could all be there to see it play out, sometimes it's heart breaking, sometimes beautiful, sometimes funny and a lot of the times surprising, that beautiful girl but her hands on her hips and said, "Look I will be right back, don't go anywhere..." and so I didn't and I stood there in the dark on a dangerous street corner and prayed for my life (don't worry it's not the first time!).
I look up not a moment later to find J back at my car, saying so are you going to get my help or not, and off we went to John Hopkins Bayview, as soon as those doors parted and we walked in I knew this was going to be know small feat getting her to stay there with me, and get into the detox program there must have been 45-50 other people waiting to see a doctor. Time passed hour by hour, minute by minute and second by second, my beautiful girl was getting impatient, around 5:15 a.m., I began to lose hope that I was going to be able to keep her there...at 6:15 she gave up on the waiting game, told me she couldn't wait anymore, she was feeling extremely dope sick and needed to get out...and those double doors parted and off she walked. I am pretty convinced she'd managed to text someone to come pick her up from the hospital considering she was on the other side of Baltimore from where I picked her up. I sat there for another 10-15 minutes thinking she might come back (how crazy am I?) and would you believe about 10 minutes after J walked out the door...her name was called.
So while this story may not have the happy ending that you're all expecting, in my heart and eyes it has a beautiful happy ending, that girl walked away from me yesterday morning, with a bible, a seed planted about the love that Christ has for her, confident that I can be reached whenever she's ready and even more confident that when the rest of the world turns there back there is someone that will love her. About a half hour after she left, I called and left her a voice mail, and about 10 minutes after that I received a text message from her all it said was "Thank You," that's all it took for my flood gates to open, if only for six hours, I saved that girl from being mistreated and used by random men, if only for six hours I got to love her the way Christ loves us, even though I had only slept about 5 hours in 48 that one small Thank You was better than receiving a million dollars.
So today I am praying for J, I am praying that in the midst of chaos in her life God will continue to show up, that she will she glimpses of Him often, that she'll continue to reach out to me, and will allow me to love her with no pressure, allow me to share my story with her and know that when she's ready I will be here to help her help herself. I am also praying that sooner than later God will bless this city with a place for these girls, a transitional place, a place of love and hope, a place where they will be loved unconditionally and equipped to function as normal members of society!
ps: I have an exciting week planned on my blog so stay tuned this week for some awesome blog posts, including a BIG announcement and a guest posting!
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