Rawdon St. Peter's C of E Primary School

This week's theme is PATIENCE.

More of our RSP family is going back to school today. But the rest of us are feeling impatient for life to return to normal. We may be getting impatient with our families and the home learning routine.

Patience is one of those qualities that we all need to develop especially when times are tough. Patience to wait for the right time, patience with each other and the patience to wait on God when things seem to be taking so long to sort themselves out. The Bible is filled with stories of people like Mary, David, Moses and Noah who had to wait for the right time, for God’s time.

Find a place where you can be still, without interruptions. You might like to light a candle as you begin.

I wonder what you think when you join the end of a long queue? I wonder who you think of when your teacher asks you to think of someone who is patient? I wonder if you can think of a time in your life when you had to be patient and wait for  something? How long did you have to wait? A minute? An hour? A day? A week? A month? Longer?

Go back to the rainbow you made a few weeks ago, or make a new one out of something different. See opposite for some ideas.

In this week's Bible story Noah has some disappointments and finds that he has to be patient. At the beginning of the story we are reading today, God had told Noah to build a great big Ark. He had to take all his family and two of every kind of animal to save them from the coming flood. Noah had carefully followed God’s plan, Noah had to show patience with the animals and people he was locked in with and with the timing of God’s plan. He had confidence that God was with him, but he couldn’t see how the plan would work out.

You can read how Noah had to be patient on the opposite page.

I wonder what made Noah most frustrated?
I wonder what helped Noah to be patient?
If you had been in the ark, what would have made you impatient, and what would you have done about it?
I wonder… if you have to feel patient, or if you can choose to be patient?
I wonder how you cope when you need to be patient – maybe not cooped up in an ark, but maybe in a car on a long journey, or through lockdown?

You might like to tell God about the things that make it hard for you in lockdown, the things you are impatient for.

Time for reflection

This week, as you reflect each day, look at your rainbow or those in windows as you go for a walk. When Noah saw the rainbow in the sky at the end of the story, he must have felt as if his patience had been rewarded. Think about how you will feel when your patience is rewarded when life begins to return to normal.

If you wish, say a prayer asking God to help you.

Dear God

Red is the colour of bravery: we pray for or think about those people who are having to be brave at the moment.
Orange is the colour of waiting: we pray or think about having to be patient and wait for things to get back to normal.

Yellow is the colour of sunshine: we are thankful for some good things in your life.
Green is the colour of growth: we pray or think about the people who are patiently growing and producing our food.
Blue is a peaceful colour: we pray for or think about people who are anxious at this time, that they would find peace and be patient with themselves.
Indigo is a sad colour: we pray for or think about those who are sad or lonely, and that those around them would be patient with them.
Violet is a royal colour, the colour of leaders: we pray for or think about the people in our government, that they will be patient and make wise decisions.

Amen

Click on the video opposite to join in with one our favourite hymns.

I wonder… how might you be patient like Noah this week?
I wonder… what you will do to increase your levels of patience this week?
I wonder… how might you help someone else who is feeling frustrated this week?

Blow out your candle as a sign that your time of worship has finished.

Let us go out of this Collective Worship with kind and positive thoughts.

We will be the best that we can be.

Noah and his family were in lockdown – and we all know what that feels like, don’t we?!

They had self-isolated to be safe from a world-wide flood, and now they’d been shut up together for longer than anyone really wanted to be. Noah and his family were grateful that they were all safe, but they were desperate to get out of the ark and get on with their normal lives…whatever the new normal was going to be. It had been a challenging time and they had to have patience with each other stuck as they were inside one ship …with all those animals! And all that noise….! And all those SMELLS!

They also had to have patience with God. They knew that God would bring this to an end but when….?!

After forty days of lockdown, Noah opened a window in the ark and sent out a raven, but it kept flying back and forth as the flood hadn’t yet gone down and it could find nowhere to land. This was a disappointment, but Noah was just going to have to wait a little longer. Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. But the dove could find no place to land either and so it returned to the
ark. They were all disappointed, but they knew they just had to continue being patient.

So, Noah waited another seven days and sent out the dove again and when it returned the dove had a freshly plucked olive leaf in its beak! This was great news as it meant the flood was going down and there were trees out there. But Noah and his family still had to be patient, they needed to be sure that this wasn’t just a blip, a one off… So Noah waited another seven days and then sent out the dove again. This time it did not return, and Noah was sure that it was safe.

Then God said to Noah ‘Come out of the ark, all of you: you, your wife and your sons’ wives’. Their patience had been rewarded. It had been a long wait; it had taken courage and resilience, but they were all safe and well. As they looked back it had all seemed worth it – and they knew that one day, it would be a distant memory. The first thing Noah did was to give thanks to God and then God set a rainbow in the sky as a reminder of his promise, that never again would a flood destroy the earth.