Beating "IT"

Today I spent an hour and a half talking to a woman who is a prostitute. We sat at one of the small round tables in the cafe drinking coffee with another guy. She wears nothing but a sundress that is too short, and a fanny pack. Some how her hair is curled and she sports mascara. Her face is worn from hours of walking in the Florida Sun. Her nails are painted. The man wears jeans and a t-shirt. He is tatooed finger tip to forehead. He is missing his front two teeth and his bottom two teeth. He has green eyes and wears his sunglasses back wards when he isn't using them. Both of my friends are convicted felons.
The woman, let's call her Deborah, started the conversation asking me about my hair... The conversation then lead to the men who have "bought" her. Then we talked about her son. The 57 year old prostitute woman sitting next me to drinking coffee has a son?
Her son has also seen a few years of prison. " He can't get out of bet with out a joint and a big glass of mountain dew" she told me, "He doesn't know life beyond that".
Then she told me a story that I'll never forget.
One week from her son's release date he was out on the work crew and his supervisor called him over and told him he had a new job for him. He was told they were going to dig a grave for a homeless man that day. The bus came and then went to the field where they began to dig the grave. After the grave was dug, the body was lowered down into it, and they buried this man. The woman's son asked his supervisor "where is this guys family? Isn't any one gunna say a prayer". He had no family, no one to say a prayer. So the woman's son said a prayer for the homeless guy.
As she told me this story she began to cry. She said " I don't want my son to have to read about my death in the newspaper one day. I don't want to be some low life homeless crack person". Her mascara was running a little bit now and her tough exterior faded just a little bit.
Deborah wants to get clean and quit using. She hates the drugs and what they've done to her. "I have been able to beat so many things in my life. I used to be a lawyers wife. I was a real estate agent. I used to live in a nice house and get my nails done every week and look at me now. I'm a druggie. And I can't beat it".
I guess the question is how bad does she really want to get clean. Her pleas resonated with the cry of my own heart. I do what I do not want to do, and I don't do what I want to do.
Isn't this the struggle of all human life? Some where in all of our lives do we have one thing we do that we know we shouldn't? Just one more brownie, just one more coffee... I'll quit smoking after this stressful event in my life is over... Just one more mile.
We all have addictions. Some people's addictions put them on the street selling their body.
Today, I learned that in whatever capacity I work with people, what ever their problem may be, there is a little bit of that in my heart too. I am on the same level as they are, I need Jesus just as much as they do. It's my job to remind them that they can make the choices to go in the right direction. It's my job to tell them they are loved, that heaven is after them.