Sometimes Chapel Makes You Think
Reflections from the Human Wrong Campaign
Sarah Plumadore
Issue date: 3/11/10 Section: Opinion
I sit in chapel with the word "Sold" plastered on my shirt and yet I sing, "my chains are gone, I've been set free, My God my Savior has ransomed me."
I realize that although my God has ransomed me from the curse of my sins, and I in no way wish to belittle the awesome nature of that redemptive act, I had never been chained; literally chained the way Maya had.
Maya, the girl whose story my shirt represents, was sold by her mother and taken across the border of Myanmar to Thailand and was forced to sell flowers from 9pm to 6am every day.
She was eight years old.
I was struck by this incongruity: I could joyfully sing "My chains are gone I've been set free," yet children like Maya are sold every day and forced into lives of slavery--chained.
As I looked around me I saw other participants of the campaign singing with hands lifted, totally immersed in this act of worship, proclaiming their own freedom in Christ. Yet their shirts screamed: "Forced," "Threatened," "Indebted," "Seduced," "Deceived,". Each shirt represented another child who had been trafficked into slavery.
I stood feeling completely overwhelmed when the next lines of the chorus hit me in a new way: "And like a flood, his mercy reigns; unending love, amazing grace."
I suddenly realized in a fresh and deeply meaningful way that because we have been set free in Christ, we can work as God's agents, carrying forth his mercy, love, and grace in this tragically fallen world. What I had thought was an irrevocable incongruity was just another example of the totally incomprehensible nature of God's plan.
I am set free, my chains are gone, and I can sing of God's wondrous love for all eternity. But God's freedom is so much richer than that. I can not only sing of God's mercy, unending love, and amazing grace; I can bring God's mercy, love, grace, and freedom to those who are still chained spiritually and physically.
Those 200 shirts that I saw in chapel were no longer a sobering statement of the horrors of the world, but an inspiring picture of Christ-followers whose freedom allows them to take part in something beyond themselves: a campaign that will bring freedom to children around the world so that they too can sing, "my chains are gone; I've been set free."
I realize that although my God has ransomed me from the curse of my sins, and I in no way wish to belittle the awesome nature of that redemptive act, I had never been chained; literally chained the way Maya had.
Maya, the girl whose story my shirt represents, was sold by her mother and taken across the border of Myanmar to Thailand and was forced to sell flowers from 9pm to 6am every day.
She was eight years old.
I was struck by this incongruity: I could joyfully sing "My chains are gone I've been set free," yet children like Maya are sold every day and forced into lives of slavery--chained.
As I looked around me I saw other participants of the campaign singing with hands lifted, totally immersed in this act of worship, proclaiming their own freedom in Christ. Yet their shirts screamed: "Forced," "Threatened," "Indebted," "Seduced," "Deceived,". Each shirt represented another child who had been trafficked into slavery.
I stood feeling completely overwhelmed when the next lines of the chorus hit me in a new way: "And like a flood, his mercy reigns; unending love, amazing grace."
I suddenly realized in a fresh and deeply meaningful way that because we have been set free in Christ, we can work as God's agents, carrying forth his mercy, love, and grace in this tragically fallen world. What I had thought was an irrevocable incongruity was just another example of the totally incomprehensible nature of God's plan.
I am set free, my chains are gone, and I can sing of God's wondrous love for all eternity. But God's freedom is so much richer than that. I can not only sing of God's mercy, unending love, and amazing grace; I can bring God's mercy, love, grace, and freedom to those who are still chained spiritually and physically.
Those 200 shirts that I saw in chapel were no longer a sobering statement of the horrors of the world, but an inspiring picture of Christ-followers whose freedom allows them to take part in something beyond themselves: a campaign that will bring freedom to children around the world so that they too can sing, "my chains are gone; I've been set free."
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