The Best Present Ever

This happened very soon after the message that Paul Kooistra delivered on prayer. (See my post entitled Prayer-it is so cool.) Because I don't believe in coincidences, I feel like this was something that God set in motion to teach me a valuable lesson and to encourage me at the same time.

My husband and I were eating at a Mexican restaurant on a Sunday night. He happened to pick up a copy of one of those free newspapers that sit in wire baskets near the doors of some businesses. It was a weekly publication aimed at college students and it had articles about bands, bars, albums, entertainment, that sort of thing. I don't remember the exact name of it.

Anyway, on the first inside page was a big ad for one of my favorite places to eat. I love the pizza there and so the ad caught my eye. But to my horror, it was an ad for a "Live Girls Gone Wild" taping to be held at that restaurant (which becomes a bar at night.) Just in case you don't know what that is, let me fill you in. Girls Gone Wild (GGW) is a series of soft core porn videos that are sold on late night tv and online. It is mostly footage of very drunk young women pulling up their shirts and exposing themselves to the camera. There are also scenes of scantily clad young women "making out." You get the idea. I have never actually seen a GGW tape, but I have seen commercials for them on tv, and they don't leave much to the imagination. The GGW franchise started out by going to college spring break destinations and taping drunk college students who were in the midst of a party atmosphere and probably thought it was a great prank to flash the camera. What many of them didn't realize was that they were being targeted by professionals bent on exploiting their drunken state and general bad judgment. I'm sure that many of the stars of GGW tapes regretted their actions immensely when they had sobered up and had a chance to think about it. But the damage was already done. And they were now stars of soft core porn that was being aggressively marketed and distributed world wide. There have been many lawsuits resulting from these tapings, but so far the only images that have been successfully challenged are images of girls who were under the age of 18 when they did the flashing, etc...

As time has gone on, GGW has started traveling around the country and throwing parties at which to perform their tapings. I can't imagine why any woman would want to go to one, but many apparently do. And although most of them probably don't intend to take their clothes off, inevitably they start drinking and find themselves very encouraged to participate in all of the "fun." Now, I am not going to act like I think all of these young women are innocent victims. Undoubtedly some of them think that being in a GGW video is great idea, and they seek out the opportunity. Maybe even most of them feel that way. But GGW is also notorious for predatory behavior and they are professionals who have pretty sophisticated means of getting what they want. I'm not going to elaborate on that here. There are plenty of places where you can find more information about that online.

So anyway, you can imagine my shock as I read that a GGW party was set to happen in our town, which has a church on every corner, AND at a restaurant that I happen to eat in very frequently. I was more than disturbed about it. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I determined that I needed to do something to keep this from happening, but I wasn't sure how to progress. At first I thought that I should call and email all the women I knew, and get us all stirred up and form some kind of public protest. But my husband did not want me to be publicly involved in anything like that. He thought the idea of the GGW party was disgusting, just like I did. But he did not want me to draw attention to myself over it. And as it happened, most of my good friends were out of town on spring break when I saw the ad for the party. It was set to happen 5 days from the time I first became aware of it.

I was casting about in my head trying to decide what I, one little homemaker, could do to thwart this professional organization from coming and victimizing young women in my town. And then I remembered Dr. Kooistra's message about prayer. And I decided that I would pray about it, because even though I was one small person without much power, God could accomplish anything.

I need to digress a little bit here and explain why this GGW party bothered me so much. Yes, it is a gross thing, and I find it very offensive that young women could be so exploited (by their own choosing), but there was more to it than that. I had been a pretty wild child in college. I wasn't the worst of the bunch, and there were a lot of things that common sense kept me from participating in. I'm pretty sure that I would never have taken my clothes off in front of a camera at a party. But there were many times when I was drunk enough, that if someone had wanted to take advantage of me they certainly could have. God was really merciful in sparing me serious harm as a result of my foolish choices. Plus, I couldn't help thinking that a young woman who went to that party and did take her shirt off might become a Christian at some point. And even though she would be forgiven, she would have to live with the thought that somewhere she was featured in a video, being played over and over again, and leading men into destructive lustful thoughts. I hated the idea that that could happen to any young woman in my town.

So I prayed. I mean, I really prayed hard. I prayed about it all day long, as I went about my normal routine. It was all I could think about. In everything that happened to me during those 5 days, a part of me was lifting this matter up to God. I had faith that God heard my prayers and would do something because of them. I realized that I might not ever know the difference my prayers made, but I trusted that they would make a difference. Even if God kept one woman from attending that party, and I might never know about it, I believed that He would be faithful because of my prayers.

I did do one other thing. I called the restaurant/bar where the party was to be held and asked to speak to the manager. In as polite and considerate a way as I could possibly manage, I asked him to reconsider having the GGW party. I told him that they were a very disreputable organization that engaged in predatory tactics to take advantage of young women. I also told him that if the party did happen, I would be unable to frequent that restaurant anymore, and that I hated to make that decision, because I really did enjoy his pizza. He was very polite in return and sounded almost apologetic about the whole thing. But he said that the owner was the one who wanted to have the party and it was out of his hands.

So I just kept praying. The day before the party was to happen, I got my Bible study ladies to pray with me. We prayed that the GGW bus would have flat tires, that the camera equipment would malfunction, and that all the young women who planned to attend would break out with blotchy rashes all over their bodies. (I have heard a great story about a woman who was saved from committing adultery because that very thing happened to her.)

The morning of the party arrived. I was in a frenzy of prayer. I mean it when I say it was the only thing I could think about. I'm sure my husband thought I was acting pretty strange about this whole thing. I even drove by the location of the party and "threw firey darts of prayer" at it from my car.

Mid afternoon I got a phone call. A friend was calling to tell me that the GGW party was canceled. I couldn't believe it! She said that apparently all of the waitresses had refused to work at the taping. They all threatened to quit rather than take part. I was ecstatic! It was like a hundred Christmas mornings all rolled into one. I felt like God had given me a huge present wrapped in exquisite paper with a huge gold bow on top, and just grinned while I opened it. I dropped to my knees and thanked God with the best words that I could come up with. My daughter thought it was great fun, and knelt beside me repeating words like "magnificent, glorious, gracious, miracle." I had literally never dropped to my knees in gratitude before that moment. But it was such a feeling, I can't even describe it. God had answered my prayer more abundantly than I ever imagined. I knew He would be faithful, but I didn't think He would cancel the whole thing! It was almost too much for me!

In reflection, I have to say that the best part is that I did not arrange a public protest. If I had done that, then I would be able to take credit for the result. But God wanted me to know that HE was the one in charge, and HE brought about the request. He did it in a way that was way better than my plan.

I think God works in ways like that very often. Someone without faith could look at the situation and decide that it was a coincidence, that it just happened to work out that way. But we know better than that. Don't miss God's work on your behalf. He really does do things for us because we pray about them. I will never doubt it again.

I have to add one more thing just so you don't misunderstand what I am trying to say. Two weeks later a dear dear friend called with devastating news and asked me to pray that God would spare her from something very specific. I prayed over it just as hard as I prayed over the situation that I just related to you. But God did not do what I asked. It wasn't His perfect will for that situation. But I was glad I prayed about it anyway.


Romans 11:33-36


"Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?
Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen."