After the Bible teaching, on the woman at the well who is forever changed by Jesus, 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 shame, violation, loss, unforgiveness and loneliness started to lift from the women’s hearts.
See here for PART 1 of Storyropes™ in Haiti.
Part 3 coming soon.
