"Looking For Love in All The Wrong Places"

"As He says in Hosea, 

I will call them 'my people' who are not my people; and I will call her 'my loved one' who is not my loved one."
(Romans 9:25)

I heard their voices...

floating in the distance....

piercing the silence....

And then,..... I saw "them."

While sitting and waiting quietly in the early morning hours..

in a lobby, at a hotel in Chicago..I was startled to see two ladies walking quickly toward the main doors just past the front desk.

They seemed out of place as they clung to each other for support. The younger of the two had a hazy glaze to her tired, crystal blue eyes.

The hotel clerk cast a sideways glance in their direction...

undisturbed..

I, on the other hand 

was immediately disturbed.

As they hurried past me

I couldn't help 

but feel 'suddenly grieved..'

Everything about the situation unfolding, 

told me quickly, that these two women were living their lives on the 'razored' side of darkness.

With crazy instinctive immediacy.. And quickly trying to somehow reach them..

As they passed I  looked deeply into their weary worn and tired eyes.. Kindly I said "good morning ladies".. 

I was somehow instantly hoping they would respond to the searching and concerned look in my own eyes.

   

It's funny how many thoughts can pour through your mind all at once..

'They were little girls once..'

'They had dreams...'

'They belong to you Father...'

'Someone..may be looking for them....'

'Someone...besides their pimp....'

How my heart dropped as they passed through the main door

disappearing around the outside of the building, only to emerge moments later..huddled in the back seat of a car, I stood there and watched these precious souls being secreted away into the dark night....

by a mysterious man sitting low, in a black sedan.

Returning to my seat, I sat alone..safe in the lobby...

Left alone with my thoughts...

I thought of Jesus and how He came for the unwanted, the desperate, the lonely..the despised..the forgotten..

I remembered that He came for 'them' in the same way He comes for me or you..

Sadly..sometimes we think more highly of ourselves than we ought...(Romans 12:3)

Even though the scriptures refer to the sinless Christ..as 

"despised and rejected of men."

(Isaiah 53:3)

When we think upon the ones society despises and rejects 

... we sometimes think of 'them'. Do you wonder as I do, how that makes Him feel?

I could have no more..ignored them, than I could have ignored my own sin.

In fact..all of our sin comes in different shades of white, "gray" and black ..

....yet, it is sin nonetheless..and it is ours.

Penetrable only by the true Light that shines in the darkness.. 

I prayed for these ladies and have since...

That God might redeem their times...

That He might....

somehow, someway... set them on a course marked with freedom.

I pray, I will always remember that the very Christ who came for them...

sees me in the same light 

as He sees 'them..'

He came with a purpose beyond our understanding..

He came for such a time as this...

The next time you see someone being whisked away into darkness by their sin..

Remember...they are not alone..

Application: Is there an area of your life that has quietly whisked you away and snatched you from the freedom you were meant to live in? 

Remember:  

He came for "them" in the same way He comes for me or you..

In fact..we are "them"!!

..only, in a different shade of gray..

(reprint and revised)
"What Color is Your Sin?"