I met Ellen on the streets of Prague. She was a woman working in prostitution, who had been touched by the outreach ministry of Project Hope. One night Ellen said this: “When you’re not here, we feel we are in a desert. There is no one to see us with God’s eyes.” Over the past two years, those simple words have walked alongside me, challenged me and stretched me. Time and time again, they have caused me to ask, “What does it mean to see with God’s eyes?” As I’ve gotten to know many women in prostitution and hear their stories, I’ve come to understand that they are in prostitution because they simply felt they had no other options to feed their children and care for other family members. It has been easy to look at them with compassion and concern, and see them as sisters and daughters. However, it becomes another story when I think about the men who are involved in trafficking, selling and buying the women. Very quickly, I lose my desire to try to “see with God’s eyes.” Recently, I’ve felt nudged to go back and reread the book of Jonah. I remembered the story as a guy who was trying to get away from God, got thrown over the side of a boat, and was swallowed by a big fish. But I was surprised by Jonah’s prayer while in the belly of the fish, because it ends with the words, “Salvation belongs to the Lord.” And yet in the next chapter, Jonah is angry with God because God chooses to give salvation to a group of people that Jonah felt was not worthy. At that point, I realized I was no longer looking at words, but was looking in a mirror. I think I’ve begun to understand what it means to “see someone with God’s eyes.” It means to look into someone’s face and see the beauty and the evil; the shadow and the light; and to know without a doubt that God wants to extend salvation and grace to this person. I’ve begun to realize that in a ministry of redemption, I have to learn to see both the victims and the perpetrators “with God’s eyes.” I know it will be difficult to learn to see in this new way, but I also know that with the Word walking along side me, it is possible.