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Awake in December: reflections at 4 am.

It’s strangely quiet. No sounds of drunken men shouting, or vehicles passing by. Just quiet. I guess it’s probably because it’s almost four o’clock in the morning, and unlike me, most people are sleeping at this time.

Most people. Not all.

After tossing and turning for a couple of hours I finally got up and made myself a cup of herbal tea. Waiting for the water to boil, I was looking out of my living room window. The few people on the streets were men and the bike-taxis, but it was quite empty. A rare sight in the largest Red Light District in Amsterdam.

Empty except for the men walking with purpose towards the windows. The windows with their bright red lights lit, showing that although the city sleeps, they are open for business. Windows with women who are awake at this hour because they have someone or something that has to be paid for and this is the way they make the money.

Windows with women that I know. Women I am hoping and praying for.

It messes with me to remember them at this hour. Remember that women whose names I know and lives I have been invited into, are stood in some of those windows with the red lights at this very moment, hoping that the man passing by will choose her.

And it causes me to pray. Pray for them by name. Pray that as I cry out and they cry out, that God would hear us and make way. Make a way in their thinking. A way of hope; hope that life can be different. Hope that this isn’t the only way to survive. Hope that this is not their destiny.

My tea is finished and I have poured out my heart. I still feel awake, but will give sleep another go. I pray that there will be strength for the day when I wake up in a few hours, and that as I get up and the women go to sleep, that they would encounter rest.

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