String thing

I ran a session for my Friday night youth group on identity in God. As a response at the end I gave them all a piece of string, and asked them to think of three things that people had said about them or that they believed about themselves that was different to how God saw them. For each thing they identified I asked them to tie a knot in the string. They then swapped the string with someone else in the group who prayed for them as they untied the knots.

One of the young people said that she wanted to untie the string herself rather than giving it to someone else to do. I let her do this, but she had tied the last knot too tight. In the end after trying for quite a while she asked me to help her. I eventually loosened the knot, and gave it back to her to untie the rest of the way.

I found this experience really profound. The girls struggle with the knot was a perfect illustration that issues to do with identity can be so deep rooted that they sometimes take years of wrestling with, and a lot of effort and determination to overcome. And when it's difficult to see how that knot can ever be undone, the experience stood as a reminder that all the sheer determination and will power in the world may not be enough to be able to budge it. We need God, and God working through others to be able to undo those toughies.

[This creative prayer response was adapted from Jenny Baker's book on Creative Worship]