Last week as I was driving some young highschoolers to church to have dinner at Grace and participate in the youth activities for the evening I was shocked by what one of them said and my heart dropped in disappointment as she spoke her mind, “I hate her, I hate the way she walks and does all that, I can’t stand women like that.” tears welled up and threatened to fall as I looked out her window and saw the woman that was the target of such hurtful words.
There really is no way to drive to Grace from my house and not pass a corner with young and older woman working to prostitute themselves to men that drive from the outside in. As the young high schooler spoke her thoughts out loud I don’t think she was prepared for my response… and to be quite frank I wasn’t either. I am passionate and love and hurt for the Woman on the streets in my neighborhood. They each have a story, they have families, they were once little girls, and once upon a time the too dreamed about what their future would hold. I would be bold enough to dare say that not one of them dreamed as a little girl that they would stand on the corner and sell themselves to complete strangers.
“How can you hate her, you don’t even know her?” I asked.
“I know her just by looking at her, I mean really look at her Ms. Suzanne” she answered.
“I see her.” I answered “I hate that what she is doing to herself, and I hate what has been done to her, but how can I hate her? I wish I knew what to say to her” I responded.
The car grew quiet and it was one of those times that you can ignore the awkward silence or use it as a teaching moment. I chose the latter.
*** No little girl dreams of becoming a prostitute. No teenager wakes up one day and says you know what I could make more $ working the streets. No woman would subject herself to the humiliation, abuse, rape, and chance of STDs just “because”. No. Somehow we (Myself included) forget that these woman are real people just like me and you. Stop just for a minute; can you even allow yourself to think about what kind of things happened, what past hurt they endured to make it to this place of desperation.
Many say that woman sell themselves so that they can support their drug habit. And while this can be true in some cases, can we even possibly pause to think about how in many cases the drugs were a second step and were used to cover up the pain of this life in the crack house with a pimp and multiple customers every day that say they love you and use you and then leave you?
I young girl/teenager that is abused in all different forms grows up thinking this is all I am worth. Then an older man comes along and tells her that she is beautiful and that he will take care of her. He takes her home to a house on the corner, she is forced to “meet” his friends. She is now property and after a few months doesn’t even think of leaving. She is part of the “family” she is dead inside and knows no other life. She is trapped in a world of lies brokenness and death.
How can we dare hate her? She is us, she reflects the very essence of human brokenness and the only difference between her and ourselves is that her hurt is an open wound for all to see, while we hide ours away and pray no one sees.
We are to love her, not to judge her. You may be the only way that she sees Jesus, do we really want to throw that opportunity away? I don’t.
1 comment:
wow. i feel that way about the women who work in the brothel across the street. it's heartbreaking. they were little girls once and they are still probably someone's baby, something i think about differently now that i have sofia.
rach
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