Praying for strength and help when we can't do it by ourselves

This is one of the activities we did yesterday when some classes from school came to do the Easter journey at church.  We used it to help talk about the garden of Gethsemane and how Jesus prayed to God to help him do the difficult thing he was faced with.

We showed the children a long length of rope and talked about its strength and the fact that sometimes, when people are in trouble we talk about 'throwing them a rope' to help rescue them.  We used this to talk about the times in our life when things are hard and we need to ask for help because we can't do it by ourselves.  This led to talking about how Christians believe that God will help them and give them strength to get through.

 We asked each child to think about who they would ask for help.  Would it be a particular person?  Would it be God?  Then each child came to tie a length of ribbon to the rope (held between two adults) as a symbol of thanks for the person who helps them to be strong.

Alternatively, children could tie a ribbon to the rope and ask God to help them to be strong when things were hard for them.

After 4 classes, hardly any of the rope was visible under the ribbons!