Women Who Want to be Devoured

All news of Miley Cyrus aside, I’ve devoted a lot of hours reading about women who have been saved from the porn industry and prostitution.  Their stories fascinate me on a psychological level, wondering how it is that they could ever rationalize selling their bodies -  over and over and over -  and the toll that must take on them emotionally and spiritually.  What happens exactly when a person’s spirit is broken?  And how can they be healed?  How do you help a person whose sense of “normal” includes abuse and drugs?  and how can you let them know they are valuable beyond the scope of this fallen world?  I plan to devote future posts exploring these questions.

Their stories fascinate me on a spiritual level because many of these women are now followers of Christ, after encountering His love and holiness for the first time.  Some christian organizations have as their evangelical focus, porn conventions.  And many women are brought to Christ through their efforts.   Shelley Lubben is one such example, a former hard-core porn star now Christian activist speaker.  She  works with her state legislature on measures to tax the porn industry and has spoken to members of the US House & Senate on the brutal effects on the body and mind from her years in the porn and adult entertainment industry.   She describes the making of hard-core porn films as “mechanical and beastly” as men do “degrading acts” to the women.   She reiterates a common theme among others who have former porn-star status:  the industry is rife with drugs, alcohol, porn addictions and suicides. 

So one may ask, what woman would ever do this to herself willingly?

I believe there’s a percentage of women who go into the industry with eyes open, thinking themselves on the road to fame and fortune, only to encounter a prison a short time later.  I can’t help but think of the words of George MacDonald describing the nature of immorality:  “All wickedness tends to destroy individuality and declining natures assimilate as they sink.”    

There’s an even larger percentage of women & children who are coerced into this dark underbelly of American culture.. but that’s a whole other post I plan to write soon.

Brittni Ruiz is another former porn star who has found God.  In several online articles I’ve read, she describes her descent into drugs and alcohol as a way to cope with the personal chaos and emotional emptiness she felt after filming multiple sex scenes per day.  In The Blaze article, Brittni states: 

“I never found love in my life and was looking for it in all the wrong places … I have finally encountered the unconditional love of God, and I will never go back.”

Brittni Ruiz

I have a compassion for these women... I wish they all could encounter Jesus Christ and feel loved and whole.  I hope they can someday know the beauty and worth of their soul.  For all of them desire love - genuine love - and acceptance above all else.  Isn’t that the fiction of fame?  Isn’t a promise of lights and cameras and adoring fans, photo opts and cash that sell these young girls?  They are convinced that their only worth is the dollar their flesh can be traded for.  It’s not too hard to convince young girls of this; the media beast delivers a constant barrage of these messages every second of every hour...on television shows, films, advertising, social media, make-up, fashion/design.. the list goes on ad nauseam.  

Isn’t it truly a yearning for love that makes women want to be devoured by the world?  to give over their body and every intimacy gifted to them by God?

What a grand deception of our enemy!  Isn’t it time for the Church -across the board - to speak up on these issues?  to educate our young generation about love, sex and purity of heart according to Christ, our Saviour?  

Exposure to pornography and the "adult entertainment industry" doesn't just happen "over there" in another location of the village...in a strip club in the red light district.  It's here.  It's IN the church, it's a click away on your child's iphone.    

God have mercy on Christians everywhere who stand against this destruction of humanity and minister to those ensnared by it.

Jar of Earth

The idea has come to me from several pious people, the notion of keeping a jar of earth on my desk to remind me of my eventual death.

Morbid?

I don't think so, even though our western minds are conditioned in such a way.  Consider how you might live if you knew your time was up tomorrow.    Would you not make the effort to correct a wrong? to seek forgiveness or to grant it?  to make peace in a challenging relationship?  

Would you not speak loving words to your family and friends?   Have you ever heard the painful plea of someone who has abruptly lost a loved one and wished for just one more moment to speak to that person?

Viewing our lives through the prism of death, knowing that our time on earth is just temporal, can give us a much needed perspective in this noisy modern age.  And what's more - so much more- is knowing that through our lives, that soul-filled garden,  God may nourish others by his abundant grace.

 *A related post.