Cuffed in Sin
by Stephanie Thomas / ga10082007
 
 

I used the object lesson in beginning of the lesson and expounded on that. I had asked for a volunteer and was grateful for a little heavenly intervention when one of my strugglers jumped right up. I asked her for her favorite sin...something she likes to do, even though she knows she shouldn't...and she said listen to gossip. So we said started with a story about how she went to school and listened to gossip. As the girls and I talked about her first choice I wrapped the string once.

We stopped and I asked, "What would happen if you asked them to stop talking about that person?" She saw my point and broke the string. So, I asked, "What would happen if you repeated the gossip?" She told me to wrap the string again. So I did. Pretty soon the YW had her not attending church, going to a party, accidentally drinking alcohol, then turning into an alcoholic, drinking and driving, and ending up in the hospital lucky she didn't kill someone. Each time they mentioned something I wrapped the string, then started doing figure eights around her wrists. She made the point that she could hardly feel the string. So, I asked one of the other YW to take the free end and see if she could pull her to her. My volunteer couldn't stop without it chafing her wrists.

Finally, one of them brought up the fact that it was almost like she was handcuffed. My husband is in law enforcement and had let me borrow his real hand cuffs for the day. Over the "flaxen cord" I put the hand cuffs. We talked about the little decisions that lead to big decisions that take us away from the Lord. Normally, would I have handcuffed my YW? Probably not - although I've been tempted. But it did get the YW's attention and all of them begged to be handcuffed. I didn't want to glamorize being "cuffed" or sin, so instead we talked about repentance and the Atonement as well as the ease of avoiding sin, so as not to have to repent from some of those sins to begin with. It was one of the best discussions our little group has had in a while.

For the handout, I went to the dollar store and found plastic handcuffs and used old rope we had laying around the house to attach 2 Nephi 26:22.