Sunday School

Every other month, I teach second grade Sunday School at my church. I share my class with another mom in the church.   Every week, I find a lesson out of the packet and make photocopies of some sort of word find or coloring page to do after we read a bible story together.

This week, we read Matthew 6:34 and the lesson of not worrying

 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

 And we talked about things we worry about - and let me tell you - second graders have a lot to worry about- - like money, grandmas, health, food, friends, and even their hair!

When we talked about Jesus telling everybody not to worry - it was kind of sweet to see the kids smile and sort of sigh about that special guy named Jesus.

Each grade has a significant something  for kids to memorize - I know one year the girls had to remember John 3:16 - was it Kindergarten or 1st grade? I'm not sure...  But I do know that third graders learn the books of the bible,  fifth graders learn the Apostle's Creed,  someone must make them learn the Ten Commandments, and sixth grade learns the Twenty-Third Psalm.  

And it was kind of cool - because my second graders need to memorize The Lord's Prayer and know what it means. And somehow - it works out with our lesson of not worrying.

I asked the kids what they thought they should do if they kept worrying even if they knew they shouldn't - you know, just because someone tells you not to worry does that mean you stop worrying?  Not always. Anyways, I don't - I need a distraction to keep my mind off troublesome matters.

So, I told the kids to say this prayer whenever they are worried.

"I do that!  It doesn't work."

"Then say it again and again."

"Mrsakhus does that make us crazy?"  (They same my name so it sounds like there's socks in my name.)

"Not it just keeps reminding you.."

When I taught my Poetry Out Loud units at school, I always told my kids that it was important to have poetry memorized and that they could take it out at any time to comfort themselves or comfort others - or perhaps they could remember the poem at a time when they were scared... 

So, we wrote the prayer on the whiteboard and removed words and talked about the word being "Bread" not "Breath" And how forgiving was good for our hearts..

And all this talk about prayer - which to me, is really just a whole bunch of positive thoughts, made our time together very cheerful...  a whole bunch hopeful.