Pretty Woman

I watched this 1990 movie some Saturdays ago. Someone once said I was born in the wrong time.

“You know much more about the 80’s and 90’s than the people who were born even before then.” She said.

I rather count myself just a curious soul — always wondering what went on before I was born…

Now this movie (Pretty Woman) was about a prostitute named Vivian, who was wise in many other things, but life forced her to take the path she was on.

She encountered a rich entrepreneur called Edward, who was a billionaire. She discovered this in bits as the movie continued to unravel. He was willing to pay any amount she wished for any service; starting from giving him directions, escorting him and driving him back to the hotel he had lost directions of.

At the bourgeois hotel, he asked her for services. She quoted an hourly rate. Later on he desired to have her all night. He asked for the damage. She randomly shouted 300 dollars (which was huge back then). He said “Done!”

The following day, Edward’s lawyer mentioned a deal that could get them richer. He recommended he goes with a girl to impress the sellers. He asked to hire Vivian for a week. She asked for 3000 dollars! He didn’t complain. On top of that, he hosted her in a pent house (the most luxurious and expensive room of the hotel), gave her money to go shopping in all the fanciest boutiques, and so much more.

In the long run, they each fell in love. Vivian recounts her childhood imagination. Where she’d see herself locked in a tower and a Prince rescues her. Edward had only suggested to see her again, after all the services, but she wanted more! He had made her to see that she was worth much more than a hooker. She had gained the money so that she’d go back to college. And as she packed while in her ghetto apartment, Edward came to confess his love permanently confirming that he’d take her for wife.

Edward’s lawyer however had been told she was a prostitute, and so he once forced himself on her but Edward came in the nick of time. And as the scene played on in my head, God entered my thoughts, and mentioned how we all are like Vivian: prostitutes who toil away just to get by, but He finds us, and takes a chance on us.

He takes us into hotels so expensive we’d never afford, raises us from the miry clay and sits us among royalty. He invests so much in us that our hidden beauty surfaces, making people doubt if we were actually prostitutes. He then marries us into an eternal inheritance where we won’t need to sell our bodies anymore to make ends meet.

He is the Prince who’ll pay anything we ask. I mean anything. Where Vivian thought she was asking overboard, it was mere pocket change to Edward. Jesus (God) will invest in us, like Edward did to Vivian. She soon looked like the queen of England escalating from grass to grace. From clay to ‘hey’.

She was pretty indeed behind that wig that she wore to attract customers… All to say that she was indeed a jewel, whose sparkle only gleamed brighter when a man made up his mind to spare not, as long as it concerned her!

And Jesus spared not either! He even died for us. If He was Edward, he’d have taken a bullet for Vivian.

Edward’s lawyer on the other hand is the devil. He shames us and sees us worthless even when we have a little bit of worth that we see in ourselves just like Vivian saw in herself an ounce of being able to go back to school. He then uses that against us, and yet someone else had made us feel good (not just about the desperate things we do to be) but about who we are naturally.

It’s quite humbling. Especially if you imagine yourself as a prostitute who gets to be picked off the streets, and made to sit on a throne. Now that’s a love too good to be true. A love all of us deeply desire, for one: we all want the best for ourselves and two: hearts, all hearts, are such a fragile thing. A God who knows you’re a hooker (sinner) and yet decides to overlook it and fall in love with you — a God who asks you “will you marry me?” and yet He’s very holy — is just a range, and an ocean of emotions!

At that point, God reminded me that this was an actual story in the book of Hosea, which shadows Him as a holy man who marries a prostitute. Now this prostitute kept on going back into the business, but he each time went and ‘bought’ her back into their matrimony, until one day, she discovered her value—how much she’s loved, and renounced this prostitution…

But all this can only make sense if you watch Pretty Woman with this mentality. And you too, will see God as Edward, and Vivian as you.