I hope you know but,
If you’ve never been told this before
This truth, I can’t hide
Even if you don’t believe
You’re so beautiful (on the inside)
It’s the words that hide quietly
Behind all the lies
But society would tell you otherwise
It’s such a struggle to meet an impossible goal
Only so they can tell you that you’re beautiful (on the outside)
And that’s as far as they will ever look
I hope you know but,
If you’ve never been told this before
This truth, I can’t hide
Even if you don’t believe
You’re heart is worth more than the world’s gold
And no one can change that
You’re worth more than all the majestic birds of the air
Or the flowers of the fields
You’re brilliance is unmeasurable
That a God would risk it all
Just to win your heart
And I pray
And He cries
Don’t give that away
And even if you don’t believe
This truth, simply can not hide
You are valuable before a mighty and loving God
You have pearls; don’t throw them before the swine
I wrote this poem a few months ago based on a particular incident that happened on Facebook. A couple other guys I know and I unwittingly added a webcam stripper as a friend on Facebook. This girl who went by the name of Pamela was going through friendlists and requesting guys to be friends. Now she didn’t have any bad pictures that would have tipped any of us off and I noticed that some other people I knew were friends with her so I added her too. We were all wondering about this mysterious girl, thinking that she was a friend of another of our friend’s.
Well, as it turns out, I was working on homework one day while also logged in to Facebook. I mean, doesn’t everyone mess around on Facebook when they should be doing homework? Anyways, one of my buddies initiated a chat with me and started warning me about this girl, saying he had just talked to her and found out that she was a stripper. He was warning me so that I could remove her from my friend list, take some sort of action, etc. Yet, he warned me not a minute too soon because as soon as I finished talking to him, Pamela initiated a Facebook chat with me. We exchanged casual ‘hello’s’ and then she immediately started soliciting herself, asking for my AIM account so she could share pictures. Thanks to being warned, I knew exactly what that meant.
I basically told her that I was not into that and that I wanted to honor God with my eyes. I told her that she was worth a lot to God and that she should not sell her self as being worth less than she really is. Later she got on and talked with another of my friends, and he pretty much said the same thing to her. He asked her a few times why she was doing this and her only answer was that it was her job. Anyways, we reported her and removed her from our friend lists to keep her from adding more unsuspecting friends. She has since been removed from Facebook.
What really struck me was that the only answer she could give as to why she was doing what she was doing was that it was her job. How heart breaking! I’ve heard that 95% of the girls in the sex industry had absent fathers. They never grew up knowing what a real man should look like. They never got to understand the concept of what true love is. I’ve also heard that 80% or more girls in the sex industry were sexually abused before they got into the industry–probably by a father or boyfriend.
Whatever the case, these girls are victims of a torturous industry. They are used, abused, beaten and mentally destroyed. It is very possible that this girl was forced into the trade, becoming a part of the sex slave trade. She was supposedly 18, according to her Facebook profile. That’s pretty young and this is certainly possible. Even if she and other girls aren’t kidnapped into the industry, though, none of them truly want to be in it, selling their bodies away to the highest bidders.
She didn’t know how truly beautiful she was. This girl was perfectly created, exactly the way God wanted her to be. He values and loves that girl so much and she doesn’t even know. She does not know that He loves her so much He sacrificed His Son for her.
The sex industry is a monster. It distorts our idea of what love is and how we should search for it. We think that if we make ourselves sexually attractive for the one that we love and that if we give ourselves up that he/she will finally love us the way we so desire to feel loved. So often we forget that love is a bond and an outward action of living for others, caring for them even more than we care for ourselves.
Guys, are you taking in your relationships or are you giving? If you love her, it’s not about getting anything back, it’s simply about devoting your life to her safety, well-being and happiness. We are supposed to love our ladies just like Christ loved the Church–totally devoting our lives to to their well-being. And isn’t this how we strive to live for Christ too? When we learn to love our wives like we should, that also should be a reflection on how we love God and devote our lives to following Him.
Girls, you don’t have to be directly involved in the sex industry to struggle with the same common things! Girls, you are so beautiful and worth so much. Self-worth doesn’t come within you but from outside of you. And who is more qualified to determine your worth than the One who created you and knows everything about you? God knows you better than even you do and He has a perfect perspective of you and the world. You are worth a lot to Him, so much so that He traded His Son for you. God became one of His own creations, took the role of a servant and sacrificed everything for you. Align your self-percieved worth with that of God’s. Your true worth comes from God; if you derive your worth from your own feelings and perceptions then you are creating for yourself a false perception of your worth. This is false worth, not true worth. It is a lie. Don’t let anyone (including yourself) determine your worth other than God. Someone who is worth as much as you deserves true love from a guy. Don’t settle for less and go looking for superficial love. Don’t settle for someone who does not truly love you or recognize how beautiful you are and how much you are truly worth.
Would you join me and fight against the wave of lies about love, romance, and worth that we are constantly bombarded with in our society? It casts a veil over our lives and blinds us from the way things really are. We might not know it but it affects us all. If we took some time to think about it, I think we’d realize that, perhaps, we’ve bought into some of these lies ourselves. When we begin to see this truth, how could we not share with others? We should be uplifting our friends and letting them know just how much they are worth and how much God loves them and what true love really is. What if we prayed? God is incredible and with Him on our side anything can happen. It might seem impossible but I think through prayer and action, we could have a truly positive impact on our friends and our surrounding community. Maybe we could even play a part in ending the sex industry as we know it today. Lets let them know how beautiful and valuable they are. Lets stop casting our pearls before swine!
