New Identity

With an experience like this its hard to know where to start. In order to understand the perspective I have on this trip I'll start 5 years ago before I knew Jesus. 5 years ago I was cocktailing at a strip club in lake city. I was mc-ing shower shows and making tips while "cleaning" the stage. 5 years ago I would have told you I loved what I did. 5 years ago I would have told you I was happy. 5 years ago I would have told you I knew what love was. It wasn't until two years ago I realized I had no idea. I didn't stay in the industry too long, but self destructive choices that continued to pull me down followed. I believed in God, even Jesus. At times I would even say I was a Christian. But I hated church and the Bible and other Christians. I thought everyone was hypocritical and thought the Bible was full of outdated laws and judgement.

> It was the morning of my 23rd birthday that all the emotions I had been running from for the past several years finally hit me. I woke up knowing i had a choice..take my life or give it to Jesus. As much as I hated church I knew I needed to be there. I started going to a small church in Bellevue and within one month my entire life changed.

> 5 years ago I was working at a strip club. 5 years ago I was broken. 5 years ago my identity was in what I could offer with my body. Today I'm working on getting my masters of divinity so I can be a jail chaplain. Today I stand as a woman restored and redeemed by the blood of Jesus. Today my identity is found in Christ.

> There are so many amazing interactions God has orchestrated in Vegas. But what He's really put on my heart to share right now is 2 cor 5:17, therefore if anyones in Christ he is a new creation. The old has passed away, behold the new has come. Even writing this makes me break open and cry. I am amazed and completly in awe of God and His redeeming love. Since giving my life to Jesus I've known this verse to be true and believed it in my heart. But to stand in an atmosphere like AVN makes me feel it like never before.

> I look at these women and know that God created them with a purpose. He created them for beauty and purity and chastity. No matter what labels they cling to or others plaster on them God looks at them and sees His daughters. He sees the faces He saw 2000 years ago when He took the cross, freeing them of their pain, their sin, their suffering. I look at them and am so certain of the love and grace God wants to lavish upon them. But to have the Lord stop me in the midst of everything and remind me that that's how He loves me too...literally takes the words from my mouth and fills my spirit like I've never felt before. Its a whole new experience with grace. I wasn't looking for God and did NOTHING to deserve His love. But He met me in my mess and pulled me out, sanctified me and gave me a new identity. Psalms 103:12 says He will cast our sins as far as east is to the west. Being here God has really demonstrated that powerful reality. It seems like every moment I am just falling more and more in love with Jesus. Finding words to fully explain what God is doing is impossible but I hope this is an encouragement.

Andrea