This week in Sunday School, we did an activity where kids had to make a chain of at least 6 links out of construction paper. Then I'd tape the end links around their wrists so they were chained up. Each link had something they wanted God to deliver them or someone they loved from.
I told kids they could write in code or really messy if they were worried someone else would read what they wrote. One girl came up to me after I'd already taped a lot of kids' chains on, most of them loose enough that they could just pull their arms out.
"Make it REALLY tight," she told me. For her, these chains were a real symbol. She didn't want to just be able to slip out. So I made them really tight.
Two of her chains said alcoholism and depression. The other four were scribbles, which meant that alcoholism and depression were the two MILDEST ones - the ones she didn't mind if other people saw. I can only guess what the other four said.
Then we had a time for silent prayer about are chains, and when kids were done they could pull their arms apart to break the chains.
It made me so sad to think that at age 10, this girl was already seeing the impacts of alcoholism, depression, and worse. But so encouraging to see her pray for God's deliverance and break those chains.
