God Lives in the Red Light District

Last week I walked down the old, shop-lined streets of downtown Amsterdam, wandering in to whatever stores looked interesting, and talking to whoever would stop long enough to have a conversation with me. As I left the warmth of one particularly interesting souvenir shop, I saw a small alley running off the main street. For a reason more important than I knew, I felt compelled to go that way. So, I threw my bag over my shoulder and set off.

Caught up in my own thoughts, I wasn't paying much attention to what was going on around me. I didn't notice the streets narrowing, the lights changing colors, or the crowd changing from a mixture to almost entirely men. By the time I looked up, I was entirely surrounded by narrow doorways topped with red lights. Display windows lined every inch of the endless, narrow street, behind which almost entirely naked women were trying to draw in their next customers.

I was in the Red Light District.

If you don't know anything about Amsterdam, the majority of the tourists are there for one of two reasons: legal marijuana and legal prostitution. The Red Light District is always crowded, always busy, and always open. It is one of the defining aspects of Amsterdam, and I had been planning on walking through. But to suddenly find myself in the middle of it without being prepared? To look up one moment and see women literally selling themselves from store windows? To see the men as they walked out of the brothels? Some of them still pulling up their zippers?

I cried.

I wanted to vomit.

I want to do both every time I think about it.

I wandered around the district for hours and never walked down the same street twice. The sheer size is shocking. I prayed and thought and tried to process the shock of my heartbreak. Heartbreak for the men who do not know or care how much damage they cause. My heart breaking for women who sell themselves, who don't know that they are worth so much more than sex. Who don't know that they deserve so much better than to be used up and thrown away. My heart broke for their stories, where they came from and how they got to be where they are.

I look at them and all I want is to hear their stories.

I started crying again when I realized that I was the only one standing on that crowded street that saw them as people. People worth knowing, worth pursuing, worth fighting for. Someone beautiful, worth cherishing and protecting.

It broke my heart even more to see the other people who, like me, were just walking around. How they laughed and jeered at the women behind the glass. Listening to them talk about them like they were less than human. Listening to them believe that they were better than the prostitutes, better than the men walking out of the brothels.

But how different are we, really? How often do we sell ourselves? How often do we use other people for our own benefit? We may not like it, but we are one in the same.

As I thought about all these things, I started feeling a little hopeless. An almost suffocating kind of heartbreak lay over me, and I couldn't do anything about it. I couldn't fix it, couldn't change it, couldn't save them. I would have given anything in the world to have been able to do something.

But that's just it.

In the middle of the Red Light District, there stands an old church. It is stone, made in the 12th century, and incredibly beautiful. When I stumbled on it, I was in awe. Surrounded by brothels on all sides, the source of more heartache than I have ever known exists less than ten feet away from the church. It stands in the middle of our world at its worst, to proclaim divine existence at its best. It has always been there, and will always be there.

Jesus was there long before I came along to be heartbroken by it, and he will be there long after I am gone. Strong and beautiful, he has always been there, right in the middle of it. He has a plan for them, perfect and wonderful and good.

I can't save them, can't even love them or know them right now. But what I can do is ache for them, be angry for them, be sad for them. I can let my heart be broken for them. Because somebody's should.

I wish I knew what God planned to do with this, because it is one of many different experiences I have had this semester, all with one common theme: humanity. He is teaching me how to have a heart that loves and weeps, breaks and rejoices for his children. How to look past the things that make us different, to see instead the things that make us the same. He has broken down walls and prejudices I didn't even know I had, and is fostering in me the kind of heart that is no longer content to sit and watch the world go by.

But that in itself is another novel for another time.