"For Such a Time As This"

I heard their voices before 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 purposefully and quickly past the front desk

toward the main entrance.

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

undisturbed..

I, on the other hand 

was immediately disturbed, 

as they hurried past me.

Everything about the unfolding situation,

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

With crazy and instinctive immediacy.. I quickly tried to somehow reach out to them..with a gentle greeting.

'Good morning Ladies'

Instantly hoping they would see kindness in me...

I looked intently as they passed.

One with eyes darting about while looking over her shoulder at me,

sadly, her friend seemed to be in a drug filled haze.

  

It's amazing 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 these two young girls passed through the main door

disappearing around the outside of  the building, only to emerge moments later in a car. 

They  were being secreted away into the dark night....by a man sitting low in a black sedan.

My heart was suddenly grieved for who they could have been..

And I was left 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)

We think of the despised and rejected 

...and we think of 'them'.

Even though the scriptures refer to the sinless Christ..as despised and rejected of men. 

(Isaiah 53:3)

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

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

....yet, it is sin nonetheless....

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

I prayed for these ladies and have since...

That God might redeem their times...with His light and His kindness,

That He might....

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

And I pray that I will always remember..

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...

(Esther 4:14)

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

Remember...they are not alone..

for there...

but by the grace of God..

go we.

Romans 9:25

"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."