PATIENCE

   (for this assembly I gathered lots of pictures from the internet illustrating the following:-)

 

            to be able to stay calm and not get upset when you are:-

            1 Waiting for something or someone

                 2 When you are held up or delayed

                 3  When someone or something annoys or frustrates  you

                 4  When doing something difficult

(It is also a card game for one. Another name for this game is Solitaire)

 

·        Pictures of calmly waiting for something or someone

·        Pictures of being held up or delayed

·        Pictures of being annoyed or frustrated

·        Pictures of doing something difficult

·        A picture of Job, a man known for his patience in the bible

·        A picture of a starfish eating its prey. (The favourite meal of the starfish is a juicy oyster, but, it is protected by a hard shell. What does the starfish do? When it finds an oyster, it climbs on top of it and locks its many arms around the oyster’s shell, then tugs on the shell until the oyster is too tired to hold it closed anymore. It does this with other shellfish too.) All good things come to those who wait !

·        Picture of a boy on a beach

·         Picture of millions of starfish washed up by storm at sea

 

Tell the story also of the boy who when walking along a beach one day, saw millions of starfish lying there washed up in the shore. So he began throwing them, very patiently, one at a time back into the sea. He spent most of the afternoon, doing this.

Along came a man, who asked him what he was doing.

The boy replied, “I’m saving the lives of these starfish!”

“But there are millions of them,” said the man. “It doesn’t matter! You are wasting your time”

 

Picking up yet another starfish and throwing it into the sea, the boy replied, “It mattered to that one!”  He licked up another and said, “It mattered to that one!”  “It mattered to that one!”

“It mattered to that one!” 

(I had cut out some felt starfish shapes for this part of the story, and I threw them, one at a time, into the ‘sea’ of children. I told them it would be a test of their patience to sit still and receive them rather than snatch at them or fight over them as they landed. They were so calm!)

 

May the road rise to meet you.

A blessing by Northumbria Community, Belford

 to finish (with simple actions for the children to mirror)

 

A second story about patience:

A man observed a woman in the grocery store with a three year old girl in her basket. As they passed the cookie section, the child asked for cookies and her mother told her "no."

The little girl immediately began to whine and fuss, and the mother said quietly, "Now Ellen, we just have half of the aisles left to go through; don't be upset. It won't be long."

He passed the Mother again in the candy aisle. Of course, the little girl began to shout for candy. When she was told she couldn't have any, she began to cry. The mother said, "There, there, Ellen, don't cry. Only two more aisles to go, and then we'll be checking out."

The man again happened to be behind the pair at the check-out, where the little girl immediately began to clamour for gum and burst into a terrible tantrum upon discovering there would be no gum purchased today. The mother patiently said, "Ellen, we'll be through this check out stand in five minutes, and then you can go home and have a nice nap."

The man followed them out to the parking lot and stopped the woman to compliment her. "I couldn't help noticing how patient you were with little Ellen..."

The mother broke in, "My little girl's name is Tammy... I'm Ellen."

(source unknown)

 

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

“Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind.”

- Leonardo da Vinci, painter, engineer, musician, and scientist (1452-1519)

“Have patience! In time, even grass becomes milk.”

- Charan Singh, mystic (1916-1990)

God's way of answering the Christian's prayer for more patience, experience, hope, and love often is to put him into the furnace of affliction.

- Richard Cecil

“Patience is also a form of action.”

- Auguste Rodin, sculptor (1840-1917)