Low Furness School

Yesterday I (Sarah) went to Low Furness School to do assembly on my own as Mark was away for the day renewing his first aid certificate.  Feeling slightly lost without my right hand man and after saying “Good Morning Low Furness” they promptly chorused back “Good Morning Mark and Sarah” (which made me laugh) we started the assembly by singing So Many Ways We Can Praise The Lord.  I was helped to lead the singing and actions by our daughter Martha. Such a blessing to have her in school to help and thankful that she has the courage to do it. Not sure I would have at the age of 9.  I then asked for two volunteers to come out to help me. I asked one to hold the plate whilst the other one squeezed toothpaste out of its tube onto it. When they had finished I asked them how easy it was to which, of course, they replied “very easy”.  I them asked them to put it back in the tube which of course they couldn’t.  I used this analogy to go on and talk about how easy it is for something to slip out of our mouths and impossible to put back in. How they all had a powerful weapon on them that could wound and hurt people deeply.  How harsh words that are said can hurt and upset people and that yes we can say sorry but perhaps we should think about what we’re saying before we say it.  I read - It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it...   James 3:5-6 Msg  As the topic of the assembly was ‘Respect and Reverence for God’ I then read – ‘Do not misuse my name. I am the LORD your God, and I will punish anyone who misuses my name.  Exodus 20:7 NIV  and went on to talk about not using our tongues to swear and blaspheme, which I explained was using Gods precious name as a swear word.  To end our assembly, we sang ‘Shine from the inside out’ explaining that when the Holy Spirit is living within us we can shine out love, joy, kindness etc to people around us.  After praying for the school and asking for God to bless all the children and staff they were dismissed out to break.