A Baby's Clothes

Polly caught a frog.

That’s the way she worded it.

It’s an occupational hazard for prostitutes.

Polly worked the same truck terminal where I worked back when I drove a tractor trailer 40 years ago.

I met her late one night in the men’s shower room. Both of us were naked.

Years later, I wrote a newspaper column about meeting The Girl In My Shower ; a copy of the article can be found at:
http://www.cowart.info/Rabid%20Fun%20columns/Girl%20in%20shower/Girl%20in%20shower.htm .

Polly asked Jesus into her heart that night—But the process of working out exactly what that meant in her life did not happen in an instant. For most of us, it doesn’t.

Salvation, becoming a Christian, is not all about solving our problems and getting our life all straight. No, Salvation is all about Jesus, about acknowledging His Lordship and giving Him His rightful and proper place.

Any happiness that relationship brings is a by-product, not the reason, of honoring Christ as Savior. So Polly’s life didn’t turn rosy the second she accepted Christ.

As I crossed country, whenever I’d pass through her town every couple of months, she’d update me on how her life was going. I think she felt relieved to able to share a cup of coffee or meal and chat with a male who was not a potential customer.

One day in the mechanic shop, she told me that she’d “caught a frog” from somebody or the other. She was pregnant and her man was upset about it, but she’d decided to have the baby anyhow.

(Now, please fellow Christians, don’t throw rocks at me, but I’m not at all sure that sometimes an abortion is not the best thing for all concerned, including the baby—and no, I do not care to discuss it.)

Anyhow, my views on the subject didn’t matter because the prostitute had already decided to have the baby before she even told me about it.

Ginny and I were expecting our own first child by then, and when I told her about Polly, Ginny knitted a little cap, booties and baby clothes for the prostitute’s soon-to-be-born baby. Not knowing whether Polly’s baby would be a girl or boy, Ginny knitted the tiny outfit out of pastel green yarn with yellow trim.

Ginny’s kind gift touched Polly.

Polly delivered a little girl child a few days before that Christmas that year. She told me that her man raped her as soon as she got home from the hospital. It hurt, she said, but she was glad he did it because she’d been scared he wouldn’t like her or find her attractive after she had the baby.

What a prince.

Like many abused women, Polly feared him but also feared being without him. The thought that he would leave her alone in the world terrified her. She could see no way to get along without him as her “protector”.

Although Polly was a Christian and, on a deep level wanted to extricate herself from street life at the truck terminal, she would never make a Bible scholar.

But, she was so proud of her newborn daughter.

“John,” she said, “I named her Merry. You know, after Merry Christmas, the mother of Jesus”.

Yes, she thought the two words were the same.

I saw no reason to correct her.

Months later when I left the road, I lost contact with Polly.

This time of year, when I hear people wish “Merry Christmas” I always think of Polly and Merry, and I wonder what happened to them.

May God bless them whatever.

If I make it there myself, I expect to see Polly again in Heaven. Not all of us who come to Jesus need to know all the right words, just the right “Man”.

Merry Christmas.