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What does love look like?

Life seems to be this unpredictable rollercoaster, and once you’re on it there’s no getting off mid-way. Life in Amsterdam is a bit like that. Every week is different, and every week contains unexpected moments; some full of exhilaration and joy, others causing me to want to get out of the rollercoaster and pick a different ride.

It’s been a while since I blogged… lack of time is mostly the reason, but then I write mostly for myself anyways, and anyone who wants to get a glimpse of what goes through my heart and mind as I walk this journey called life.

This week my heart has been so stirred with a burden for the people in my neighborhood (read: the Red Light Districts of Amsterdam) and with a burden to figure out what love looks like.

My heart carries a burden for each woman who day after day and night after night stands in a window hoping that she’ll make enough money to one day be free. What does love look like for her?

Love is real.

As I love the women, I don’t present them with an illusion of a love that will “remove all their problems”. God’s love isn’t pink and fluffy, and it certainly isn’t the guarantee for an easy life. His love meant His son dying. Love was the motivation in the heart of the Father when He sent Jesus. Love is a very real thing. But God loves us right where we’re at- no matter what that means. He loves the woman who stands in a window as much as the woman who sits in a church pew. His love is constant and never-ending. And it’s a real love that comes into real life and transforms from the inside.

Love is patient.

As I get to know the women, my heart is that they would get to know the God who is Love. The God who is so patient and kind. And as I love them, I seek to be patient, not pushing Jesus on them, but allowing them to draw near to Him. My heart is that as they step towards Him, they would encounter the One who will heal their hurt, comfort their hearts, and give them hope.

Love hopes.

And as I share about Jesus who is so completely loving and completely able to come into their lives, seeds of hope are sown. Hope that their sin can be forgiven. Hope that resurrects dead dreams. Hope that maybe, just maybe, there is something beyond the life they are living. Hope that it is possible to be free, truly free.

But with the burden for the women there is also a deep cry for the men; those who play a huge part in what is going on here. A burden to see them free and walk in all they were created to walk in, which is definitely not walking along the small alleys lined with women on display.

It’s interesting how even a tiny revelation of God’s heart shifts my heart.

When I walk past the men in the district, I feel no anger or hatred. I do get frustrated sometimes, especially when the words proceeding out of their mouths are unrepeatable, but I don’t hate them…and I don’t get angry (not in the human anger sense, there is of course a righteous anger which is different). When I ask God about His heart, I am able to see that the men are just as lost as the women. Of course that is no excuse for their behavior or the choices they are making. But just as the women have a story, each man also has a story. A story of how he ended up in the Red Light District. And what they are walking in is not what they were created to walk in.

So what does it look like to love them?

I think it goes deeper than merely a choice to pray, although that is a good start. “Love believes all things and hopes all things.” I can also choose to hope for them and believe for them and allow my prayers to flow from that place. Praying and believing that there is hope; that they are not too far gone, and that God is able. Praying and hoping that they will choose a different way and choose to let God in. As I pray I don’t just pray that they would leave their involvement in what is going on here, but I want to hope that their lives can shift, that they can be set free from their addictions, and believe that their lives can also be transformed by Jesus. Hope that they themselves one day can become the ones who are part of restoring the lives they were once exploiting.

This is a wee glimpse into my journey of learning how to love those around me from that place of knowing God’s love first. A journey of loving those it’s hard to love and those who don’t know what love really is. I am far from figuring all this out, but I am committed to the journey which at the end of the day will bring me to knowing more of the heart of God.

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