Eye Contact...

Today I passed some prostitutes on the street....
I made eye contact with one just long enough to see the familiar emptiness I expected.
I tried making eye contact with some of the others but they conveniently looked other directions.

In the past I have described my self as a spiritual harlot slave. 6 Months ago I too conveniently avoided eye contact. I knew that familiar voice and feeling in my chest that would come over me when I knew someone was trying to make eye contact with me. The voice that said if I looked they would see right through me and know my weakness and wrongs. The voice had been there so long that I no longer remembered at the moment what my weakness were. I didn’t know why I was afraid, I had been afraid so long it was just normal for me. I would go about my day mostly normal with the exception of the small sneaky lies anxiety attacks that kept me from looking people in the eye. This was the outward symptom of the giant monstrous root issue inside. I knew I had a problem but I was to over whelmed with life to know what to do about it.

The emptiness I saw in that woman's eyes was the same emptiness I saw in the eyes of the brown orphans I met in Africa. The same emptiness I had seen in many who have been abused. I don’t know if these woman are forced to work this job or if they choose it for them selves. I do know this. When you are a victim, being forced against your will to fulfill the demands of another... at some point you try to own some of it. Being forced against your will for so long eventually makes you want to bend your will to go along. It hurts less if you own part of it and can lie to your self about it being your choice. It makes you feel like you have a say.

One wonderful thing I now know about my Savior is that even when I choose to leave the hope of his promise for the bending of my will to go along with my captures, His heart yearns for me with great compassion. I never knew until this year that God had compassion toward me.

Through the process of His love and salvation I have come to a new place. A place of Grace. A place of strength. I can now look others in the eye. I can look the prostitutes in the eyes with nothing but empathy and compassion for them cause in many ways I know what it’s like to be ashamed, I also know what it’s like to have my shame removed and to know the perfect healing truth of love. Real love. Today I couldn’t help remember a time where I would have been afraid to make eye contact with a sinner like the girls I saw today, but now I know that they are just normal people, struggling with many of the same fears, sorrows and burdens anyone of use does on a normal day.

I don’t know the future, but I do know that there is a reason I can relate to prostitutes now more than ever.