Necessary

For a dance…for a song…for how long?

NO LONGER NECESSARY.  These words were spoken over me recently.  It was said that, though my story and my knowledge had once paved a way for others, I was no longer necessary in a particular arena.  On the surface, this may be true.  Life goes on.  My presence is not essential to God’s success.  I trust in the power of Jesus and the life-changing message of the gospel, and I truly believe that God has gifted many people to be carriers of His light.  However, far below the surface, this declaration of my necessity to something that was birthed from my own story hurt my heart and reopened wounds I had believed were healed.

 I had poured out three years of my life reliving three years of the hardest time in my life to bring the love of Jesus into strip clubs, and used my unique experiences to train other women to do the same.  Though God has moved me into a new season of working together with women in the sex industry, walking away from this ministry was one of the hardest things I have ever done.

I have many memories of working in the clubs and, thirteen years later, I still have nightmares that sometimes linger in my heart for days.  There were times when I would see something as simple as a woman wiping down the pole, and suddenly I could remember clearly how it felt to be on the stage.  The creak of the dressing room door and the smell of perfume in the air would remind me of nights when I believed there was no hope for something different.  But those three words…no longer necessary…have brought back the reality of life in the clubs for me more than any experience I have had in the last three years.

  In the clubs, I was “necessary” over and over again in the course of a night.   For a quick moment at the edge of the stage, for a dance, or for several songs, I was needed.  And then I was tossed away.  Who I was began to fade.  I disappeared.  Hidden in the dark, I would reappear when I would catch someone’s eye…and then I became “necessary” once again.

WE ARE ESSENTIAL.  I have spent the last couple of weeks reminding myself of this truth, and I want to remind you how incredibly precious you are, too.  The truth of who we are doesn’t come from people.  It doesn’t even come from who we see in the mirror.

“In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary.”  1 Corinthians 12:22

The Word of God says that we are necessary!  THAT is what you need to cling to.  It doesn’t matter if you are still working in the club, if you use drugs, if you are a thief, an ex-con, if you have never known God or if you have walked away from Him…you are loved by GOD and you are ESSENTIAL.  You are not forgotten.  You are seen.  You are remembered.

“He remembered us in our weakness.  His faithful love endures forever.”  Psalms 136:23

WE ARE NECESSARY.