After the Bible teaching with each of group of women(SEE HERE FOR THAT STORY), I shared my story with my storyrope™. I taught that each of our stories matter and are important to God. I told the ladies, “Just like the woman at the well, He knows our stories and wants a love relationship with each of us.” Our stories are safe with Jesus, no matter how hard or shameful our stories may be. Then, we had the ladies make their own storyropes™ to use as a bridge for telling their stories. They sensed they had permission to share hard parts of their stories, and eagerly made their ropes.
As the women finished making their storyropes™, they broke into small groups. Within the intimacy of their small group, each woman received the gifts of careful listening, prayer, and hugs of compassion. They saw they have an important voice – they were worth our careful listening and prayer
After this time of sharing, the women hung their storyropes™ on God’s story rope – represented by a gold chord. They saw a tapistry of fabrics and ribbons to help them picture the truth – each of our stories are part of God’s larger story and matter for the telling of His story.
My prayer is that the women really sensed, in their hearts, how much Jesus loves them, and because of that, shame, violation, loss, unforgiveness and loneliness started to lift from the their hearts as they shared their stories. We heard many stories of sorrow, loss, violation, spiritual abuse, but in the end, many tied bright green ribbons on their ropes to represent hope. Part 3 coming soon!
“Surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off.” – Proverbs 23:18
We ended our day with the ladies by dancing. Many wore their story ropes, as I did, shown above. We ended with joy, hope and celebration!
MAKE A STORYROPE: Click Here.
