As a filmmaker, I love watching documentaries – especially ones about topics that I’m not exposed to every single day. Yesterday, I watched a documentary that followed the lives of a few girls who did amateur pornography. For so many of the girls, they used their “career” in amateur pornography as an escape for the realities of life. Though part of me wants to be angry at them for selling themselves and throwing away their bodies, a much larger part of me – my heart – shatters for them. They seek love, security, and safety in all the wrong places. They want to be known deeply and loved deeply… yet they aren’t. They don’t see how broken they are. And God’s heart breaks for them, because He so desperately wants to rescue them from their brokenness.
Then earlier today, I watched a documentary about 4 guys who spent their summer living in Central America on one dollar a day. It was a very real way for them to show how millions of people live on less than one dollar per day and the hardships they encounter because of that poverty. Having spent some time in Central America, my heart shattered again and again for these people who live on the fringes, barely surviving.
God’s heart breaks for these people. He sees broken, teenage girls selling themselves for money, for the hope of being famous and “being known.” His heart breaks for the people who are barely surviving, who live on the fringes, who are unnoticed by most. He sees them, and his heart breaks.
But the truth is that it’s not just those who do porn that are broken.
It’s not just those who survive on one dollar per day that are broken.
All of us are broken. All of us need healing.
Even here in East Memphis, in the wealthiest part of the city, we are broken. And God weeps for us.
I watched the Dollar a Day series last summer. I sponsor children in Central America through Compassion International, and the $ a Day series really helped show me what life is like there. People may be living in poverty, but in some ways they are very rich. The people I know from CA have big hearts and a strong faith.
For sure! I used to do missions in Nicaragua. Though they have nothing materially, they are rich in so many other ways!