Darkness, lights, booming music– that is what we are met by when we enter the strip club. We have been here before but this night is different. We walk in and only one girl is dancing on stage. We walk in and one girl is sitting on the couch. We walk in and a group of about 10 men are sitting watching the girl on stage. We walk in and see two policemen at the bar. We walk in and the 20 girls who are usually there are nowhere to be seen.

We take a seat off to the side to just observe the situation. We watch as the police take pictures of everyone who works there- each of them is holding up an ID. I sit there watching, taking in the scene, and praying “Lord, why do you have us here tonight? What do you want?” He responds, “just be a light. You don’t need to talk to anyone tonight- just be a light.” So, I just sit.

The police barely make it out the door before the rest of the girls come walking out of an upstairs room they were hidden in. They take their places on stage and around the group of men who are twice their age if not older. My heart starts to break a little and I hear once again “Just be a light.”

We sit for a bit before making our way over to two of the girls. We chat with them about life through broken English. We just sit with them and show them that we are here for very different reasons than the other customers. We don’t have to tell them why we are here; they can feel it by just being around us. We are different- we don’t want their bodies. We don’t want their temporary love. We want them to feel freedom. We want them to feel unconditional love. We want them to feel grace. We want them to feel restoration.

We sit and watch one of the men sit next to the bar mom. We watch him point to a few girls. We watch as he pays the bar mom. We watch the girls that he pointed to- we watch them walk upstairs. We watch them come back down the stairs dressed in “normal clothes.” We watch one of the girls walk out of the bar with one of the men. We get up to leave and walk behind another girl leaving the bar with two men. We watched these men purchase these women. They purchased them like they would purchase a pair of shoes. They purchased them like they were a good to be used- not a human being with feelings. We walked out of that bar and my heart shattered. My heart shattered for the girls (because let’s be honest, that’s what they are) but it also shattered for the men. And I heard God say “grace, my love, that is what my grace looks like. Love these men as I love you. They are my children and they are also hurting. Give them grace and show them my love.”

This month is going to be hard. It has only been one week and it is already by far the hardest month of my race. But this month is also going to be good and full of freedom and has already been one of the best months of the race. My heart is going to break as I walk into some of the most broken places and people I have ever seen BUT God is good and He is light and because He lives within me, I am light too. That’s all I want to be this month- I want to be a light. I want to be grace. I want to be love.