An invitation to a birthday party fourty eight hours ago has inspired every single conclusion that has been drawn and explained in this post. Why? Because I work on Saturday nights. Always. I can't not work on a Saturday night in my business. But change is afoot and dynamics are beginning to shift.
You see, today I sat on the grounds of Prestonwood, by the pond, staring at the church, in tears, in the heat and didn't care. I was fragile and all kinds of vulnerable, not knowing what to do as my eyes were opened fully to something the Lord has pointed to the last several years -- and I've only been a Christian for a year. Crying out to God, I made my pleas that he would continue to guide me and provide me with wisdom, and a peace not even I would be able to understand and the strength to carry out the message he gave me today. Crying out also for the provision surrounding every need in regard to the word he gave me in the direction I am to go and, more importantly, what I am to leave behind. I then thanked him for already providing the faith needed to even consider leaving my strippers behind.
Yes, you read that correctly. Dancers. Exotic ones. In a strip club, sometimes referred to as a Gentlemen's Club (though not one gentleman has ever entered their doors.) Three different clubs, with hundreds of girls I've had the pleasure to interact with, to build up, and be a light for in a very dark place.
A year ago I came out of the Christian closet. Today I am coming out entirely, something that even my girls will understand. Right now as I'm sure some of my girls will read, I offer assurance I will not reveal who you are. I am no dancer. I am their makeup artist, and we share closets, because many of them hide in there too.
Almost one year ago I was faced with some tough decisions, that all began the moment I came to know the Lord on July 14,2011. Nine days after Christ literally invaded a hardened heart only he could've transformed, I rolled my car on George Bush Freeway three, possibly five times on my way to work. By all counts, I had at least three opportunities to die in that car accident. But I didn't.
He had a purpose for me and the ten thousand dollars worth of makeup that was all over the highway, that was by his grace, accounted for and usable, the very makeup was recovered by a complete stranger whom I randomly ran into six months later in a totally different city. That purpose was to use this same makeup this past year to show a club full of hurting, lost, abused and broken women, that would swear up and down they are anything but hurting, lost, abused and broken, what giving up everything to walk in the light means and what it looks like because I too am hurting, abused and broken. However, I am no longer lost. This agnostic skeptic has been found. He saved me.
Let me tell you -- they are curious, they are drawn, just like I was to Diane before I would even entertain the idea of Jesus, and I've known her since 2001. But for these girls, I have been used in a way, in each one of these lives, each and every one who ever sat in my makeup chair to a degree I will never know, but am honored to be a part of.
So to these women, these same women who have seen the change the Lord has made in me, I dedicate this post to you, to your pasts and to your futures and the hope and promise that lies in giving up all control to the very one Jesus who allowed you to entertain the slightest inkling that led you to believe you could possibly control anything in the first place.
I also say to you, that as you search for someone to love and care for you, to pay attention to you in that oppressive loneliness in which you live, that at first was seemingly luxurious on center stage and was later lined in sharp-dollar lies that have pinned you down in the plastic trenches of guilt and shame, I say that despite being surrounded constantly in that loneliness by people, money, designer bags and shoes to fill the hole and get the attention you so desire, you might read this blog and see how much, how often, and how intricately this same Jesus is interested in, loves, and orchestrates every single aspect of the life you have, the life you live, and the future only he can make, free from every hurt, and full of something much weightier and worthwhile than any of the happiness you seek : something simply called joy.
To my girls, I offer safety in that I will never reveal your name. To my general reader I ask that if you know the Lord, you pray for these women, for the men that drive this business and their hearts as they read this post.
Pray for others like them, that do not know this Jesus, and who, in every fiber of their being, despite themselves, seek his face, his radiance, his love and peace in all the gadgets, toys, and distractions this world offers them.
This announcement is an of itself is enough for an entire book. The point here is to press into what the Lord revealed earnestly to me today: working in the clubs is also my cage. I am just as trapped and imprisoned as my girls are, and those shackles must be broken.
Shortly after my conversion, I picked up Ed Welch's book, When People are Big and God is Small. This was the first book I absolutely devoured, and while reading it one day, I was standing up, and tears began cloud the page. I then dropped the book and fell on my knees and sobbed. It was made very clear to me on that day why my life had unfolded the way it has, the why behind not being able to get into graduate school - the one thing I wanted more than anything else before I ever finished my bachelor's degree.
The Lord allowed life to get in the way the last two years of college, and it went by so fast, I was completely unaware I slid from a 3.66 GPA to a 2.39. My senior year I was a single parent of a one year old, commuting to college, traveling over a hundred miles a day in order to use a free babysitter, working twenty hours per week at Starbucks for nine dollars an hour, with gas at three dollars a gallon and having to learn the law to fight and ultimately win a custody battle in addition to every other aspect of my life as a mom and student. Most of the time, I had no idea which end was up I was so tired or where my next gallon of milk was coming from.
Looking back, if you don't believe anything I just described as the Lord having the audacity to meddle into my affairs, how about this -- would you believe that even if my GPA had remained at a 3.66 grad school was still out of the question because there was not one Renaissance scholar in this giant state of Texas? Not one. Full of Medievalists, but not one Renaissance scholar, much less one focused on Italy.
That was a roadblock. It was aggravating and frustrating to be sure, but his design is perfect. In this decade I have begun to shed the self deserving skin that angrily despised the fact there was no one to serve my needs. He kept me from studying the wrong thing.
And all of this is being redeemed in a way I would have never imagined. You see, it was also imparted to me in Welch's book, makeup was a means to an end and nothing more. This book was the catalyst that revealed I would go to seminary. A day or so later I knew the Lord would call me back to Italy. I also knew I would be called to vocational ministry and that I would, at some point, be speaking to large groups of people. All of this blew me away.
About a week after that, Debbie Stuart of Prestonwood's Women's Ministry asked me to speak at an event. I had never held a microphone. But in the very moment I went on that stage, I literally saw all the hundreds of people who have told me my entire life I should be in theater. I hate theater. I cant help it, but I do. It was as if a wind came up behind me, and with complete ease and not one shred of nervousness, my mouth opened and I spoke. In three days I had the opportunity to speak to about seven hundred women. The Holy Spirit enabled me to do that without reservation. HE also allowed me to understand the heart behind why I was told by so manyI should be in theater, and why I have the personality I do that allows me to be so transparent. God wired me that way for a reason.
It hit me that my time as a makeup artist was the season the Lord gave me to prepare my heart for him, for ministry, to hone my teaching skills, to listen and to meet others where they are. Even in a strip club. And the clock is ticking.
I'll tell you-- I saw alot of hurts on the faces of the girls I have worked with the last four years. Around Christmas I saw this video, and that's when I was first convicted for my work, and the struggle to sift through calling and purpose began.
Jacob's Story from Unearthed on Vimeo.
Many opportunities have come since this time, but only one fits the vision that was first given when I opened Ed Welch's book. Italy was placed on the table, eagerly accepted the opportunity but instead I was told to wait. I wasn't told No!! I was told not yet, and I was overwhelmingly surprised how not angry I was. I have also been in this season of depending on the Lord for everything, and I mean absolutely everything.
But you see, therein lies the beauty in how much he loves me. He wants me to succeed, and one cannot do that without Christ. I spent twenty plus years thinking I could, and as I celebrated my first birthday in Christ, I cannot believe how far the Lord has carried me, what I am being delivered from, where I am being sent to, and the purpose and plan that was laid before God even considered (think about that) the very fist star or even where to put it.
See, when he considered where to put that star, he already knew I would live through a childhood I don't remember, be a suicidal teen, a codependent lover, and a single mother, who would, at thirty two become a saved and ransomed woman that would one year later be sent to something called Re:train.
The music of Depeche Mode comprises the soundtrack to my life. Today, God used even this while I splurged and went to a sandwich shop for lunch. Even as I pulled into Jersey Mikes, I wondered why I was going there. I thought to myself, "They don't even have Coke. Oh well, I'll have water." As I ate my turkey sammich, I sat considering the choices that need to be made before I even go to Re:Train, and as I got up to leave, I heard this song. And then I knew why I went there in the first place. For now I will simply tell you this: What a Strangelove, indeed. The love freely given of this caliber and awe inspiring magnitude is absolutely the strangest love I have ever known. Yes, he does make my heart smile, and I can return the pain quite simply because I wasn't meant to carry it. I heard this song, from my favorite Depeche album, a song I've heard a million times over, like it was the first time. I heard it with completely different ears... all I heard was this... But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5 And I left that store in tears. But I will explain why later.
You see, today I sat on the grounds of Prestonwood, by the pond, staring at the church, in tears, in the heat and didn't care. I was fragile and all kinds of vulnerable, not knowing what to do as my eyes were opened fully to something the Lord has pointed to the last several years -- and I've only been a Christian for a year. Crying out to God, I made my pleas that he would continue to guide me and provide me with wisdom, and a peace not even I would be able to understand and the strength to carry out the message he gave me today. Crying out also for the provision surrounding every need in regard to the word he gave me in the direction I am to go and, more importantly, what I am to leave behind. I then thanked him for already providing the faith needed to even consider leaving my strippers behind.
Yes, you read that correctly. Dancers. Exotic ones. In a strip club, sometimes referred to as a Gentlemen's Club (though not one gentleman has ever entered their doors.) Three different clubs, with hundreds of girls I've had the pleasure to interact with, to build up, and be a light for in a very dark place.A year ago I came out of the Christian closet. Today I am coming out entirely, something that even my girls will understand. Right now as I'm sure some of my girls will read, I offer assurance I will not reveal who you are. I am no dancer. I am their makeup artist, and we share closets, because many of them hide in there too.
Almost one year ago I was faced with some tough decisions, that all began the moment I came to know the Lord on July 14,2011. Nine days after Christ literally invaded a hardened heart only he could've transformed, I rolled my car on George Bush Freeway three, possibly five times on my way to work. By all counts, I had at least three opportunities to die in that car accident. But I didn't.
He had a purpose for me and the ten thousand dollars worth of makeup that was all over the highway, that was by his grace, accounted for and usable, the very makeup was recovered by a complete stranger whom I randomly ran into six months later in a totally different city. That purpose was to use this same makeup this past year to show a club full of hurting, lost, abused and broken women, that would swear up and down they are anything but hurting, lost, abused and broken, what giving up everything to walk in the light means and what it looks like because I too am hurting, abused and broken. However, I am no longer lost. This agnostic skeptic has been found. He saved me.
Let me tell you -- they are curious, they are drawn, just like I was to Diane before I would even entertain the idea of Jesus, and I've known her since 2001. But for these girls, I have been used in a way, in each one of these lives, each and every one who ever sat in my makeup chair to a degree I will never know, but am honored to be a part of.
I also say to you, that as you search for someone to love and care for you, to pay attention to you in that oppressive loneliness in which you live, that at first was seemingly luxurious on center stage and was later lined in sharp-dollar lies that have pinned you down in the plastic trenches of guilt and shame, I say that despite being surrounded constantly in that loneliness by people, money, designer bags and shoes to fill the hole and get the attention you so desire, you might read this blog and see how much, how often, and how intricately this same Jesus is interested in, loves, and orchestrates every single aspect of the life you have, the life you live, and the future only he can make, free from every hurt, and full of something much weightier and worthwhile than any of the happiness you seek : something simply called joy.
To my girls, I offer safety in that I will never reveal your name. To my general reader I ask that if you know the Lord, you pray for these women, for the men that drive this business and their hearts as they read this post.
Pray for others like them, that do not know this Jesus, and who, in every fiber of their being, despite themselves, seek his face, his radiance, his love and peace in all the gadgets, toys, and distractions this world offers them.
This announcement is an of itself is enough for an entire book. The point here is to press into what the Lord revealed earnestly to me today: working in the clubs is also my cage. I am just as trapped and imprisoned as my girls are, and those shackles must be broken.
Shortly after my conversion, I picked up Ed Welch's book, When People are Big and God is Small. This was the first book I absolutely devoured, and while reading it one day, I was standing up, and tears began cloud the page. I then dropped the book and fell on my knees and sobbed. It was made very clear to me on that day why my life had unfolded the way it has, the why behind not being able to get into graduate school - the one thing I wanted more than anything else before I ever finished my bachelor's degree.
The Lord allowed life to get in the way the last two years of college, and it went by so fast, I was completely unaware I slid from a 3.66 GPA to a 2.39. My senior year I was a single parent of a one year old, commuting to college, traveling over a hundred miles a day in order to use a free babysitter, working twenty hours per week at Starbucks for nine dollars an hour, with gas at three dollars a gallon and having to learn the law to fight and ultimately win a custody battle in addition to every other aspect of my life as a mom and student. Most of the time, I had no idea which end was up I was so tired or where my next gallon of milk was coming from.
Looking back, if you don't believe anything I just described as the Lord having the audacity to meddle into my affairs, how about this -- would you believe that even if my GPA had remained at a 3.66 grad school was still out of the question because there was not one Renaissance scholar in this giant state of Texas? Not one. Full of Medievalists, but not one Renaissance scholar, much less one focused on Italy.
That was a roadblock. It was aggravating and frustrating to be sure, but his design is perfect. In this decade I have begun to shed the self deserving skin that angrily despised the fact there was no one to serve my needs. He kept me from studying the wrong thing.
And all of this is being redeemed in a way I would have never imagined. You see, it was also imparted to me in Welch's book, makeup was a means to an end and nothing more. This book was the catalyst that revealed I would go to seminary. A day or so later I knew the Lord would call me back to Italy. I also knew I would be called to vocational ministry and that I would, at some point, be speaking to large groups of people. All of this blew me away.
About a week after that, Debbie Stuart of Prestonwood's Women's Ministry asked me to speak at an event. I had never held a microphone. But in the very moment I went on that stage, I literally saw all the hundreds of people who have told me my entire life I should be in theater. I hate theater. I cant help it, but I do. It was as if a wind came up behind me, and with complete ease and not one shred of nervousness, my mouth opened and I spoke. In three days I had the opportunity to speak to about seven hundred women. The Holy Spirit enabled me to do that without reservation. HE also allowed me to understand the heart behind why I was told by so manyI should be in theater, and why I have the personality I do that allows me to be so transparent. God wired me that way for a reason.
It hit me that my time as a makeup artist was the season the Lord gave me to prepare my heart for him, for ministry, to hone my teaching skills, to listen and to meet others where they are. Even in a strip club. And the clock is ticking.
I'll tell you-- I saw alot of hurts on the faces of the girls I have worked with the last four years. Around Christmas I saw this video, and that's when I was first convicted for my work, and the struggle to sift through calling and purpose began.
Jacob's Story from Unearthed on Vimeo.
Many opportunities have come since this time, but only one fits the vision that was first given when I opened Ed Welch's book. Italy was placed on the table, eagerly accepted the opportunity but instead I was told to wait. I wasn't told No!! I was told not yet, and I was overwhelmingly surprised how not angry I was. I have also been in this season of depending on the Lord for everything, and I mean absolutely everything.
But you see, therein lies the beauty in how much he loves me. He wants me to succeed, and one cannot do that without Christ. I spent twenty plus years thinking I could, and as I celebrated my first birthday in Christ, I cannot believe how far the Lord has carried me, what I am being delivered from, where I am being sent to, and the purpose and plan that was laid before God even considered (think about that) the very fist star or even where to put it.
See, when he considered where to put that star, he already knew I would live through a childhood I don't remember, be a suicidal teen, a codependent lover, and a single mother, who would, at thirty two become a saved and ransomed woman that would one year later be sent to something called Re:train.
The music of Depeche Mode comprises the soundtrack to my life. Today, God used even this while I splurged and went to a sandwich shop for lunch. Even as I pulled into Jersey Mikes, I wondered why I was going there. I thought to myself, "They don't even have Coke. Oh well, I'll have water." As I ate my turkey sammich, I sat considering the choices that need to be made before I even go to Re:Train, and as I got up to leave, I heard this song. And then I knew why I went there in the first place. For now I will simply tell you this: What a Strangelove, indeed. The love freely given of this caliber and awe inspiring magnitude is absolutely the strangest love I have ever known. Yes, he does make my heart smile, and I can return the pain quite simply because I wasn't meant to carry it. I heard this song, from my favorite Depeche album, a song I've heard a million times over, like it was the first time. I heard it with completely different ears... all I heard was this... But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5 And I left that store in tears. But I will explain why later.
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