Week 834 · about 45 minutes
Lamentations 1
Lamentations 1 · Memory verse Lamentations 1:19
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Queues the lesson plan, this story’s coloring page (Lamentations 1), the matching word search and answer key (Lamentations 1 word search), the memory-verse tracer, and a parent slip.
Five-minute object lesson
Prop: a smooth stone
Hold a smooth stone. Read Lamentations 1 in about four minutes, stopping at Lamentations 1:19: ““I called for my lovers, but they deceived me. My priests and my elders gave up the spirit in the city, while they sought food for themselves to refresh their souls.” Ask, “What does this prop have to do with Lamentations 1?” Let two children answer, then say the memory verse together.
Story script
Lamentations 1 is a real chapter from the Old Testament. It starts, “How the city sits solitary, that was full of people! She has become as a widow, who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave!” That is not a motto invented for a poster. It is the first sentence a family hears when this page is opened at night.
Keep going a little further. The chapter also says, ““Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look, and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which is brought on me, with which Yahweh has afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.” Lamentations 1 opens with these words: “How the city sits solitary, that was full of people! She has become as a widow, who was great among the nations! She who was a princess…” The line to keep is Lamentations 1:19: ““I called for my lovers, but they deceived me. My priests and my elders gave up the spirit in the city, while they sought food for themselves to refresh their…” Carry the word “called” from that verse into the rest of the day.
The line worth learning out loud is Lamentations 1:19: ““I called for my lovers, but they deceived me. My priests and my elders gave up the spirit in the city, while they sought food for themselves to refresh their souls.” If the rest of the chapter feels crowded, hold that one sentence until the room is quiet.
What happens first in Lamentations 1? Then try this: Read ““I called for my lovers, but they deceived me. My priests and my elders gave up the spirit in the city,…” once more. What does it show you about God? You do not have to finish every verse. You can close the book after the memory verse and still have read the Bible together.
Group game
Walk the room as if you are moving through Lamentations 1. Every time you freeze, a child says one word from Lamentations 1:19. The last child says the whole verse.
Craft
On a US Letter sheet, draw one picture from Lamentations 1 and write Lamentations 1:19 under it. Send it home as tonight’s reminder, not as a decoration contest.
Memory verse
Lamentations 1:19
““I called for my lovers, but they deceived me. My priests and my elders gave up the spirit in the city, while they sought food for themselves to refresh their souls.”
Take-home prayer
Father, thank you for Lamentations 1. Help us remember Lamentations 1:19 when we wake up, and teach us to notice you in an ordinary night. Amen.