LAMENTATIONS

What is sadness? Why do we feel sad? How can faith support sadness and help us to move forward?

Bethan Bowen, Religious Education Lead, at St David's Primary School, Cardiff has written a series of lesson suggestions. These can be taught as one off lessons or through a focused week on journeying through sadness.

Lesson 4 is written by Christoph Auckland, Senior Outreach Officer for the Diocese of Llandaff.

We want to encourage children to know that it's ok not to be ok and allow them to express their sadness. We also want them to think about what might guide and help them through times of sadness.

Reverend Rose Hill presents a worship on how can we help children cope when something bad happens in the world. Reverend Rose discusses understanding feelings and how we can talk about things that make us sad or uncertain. This may be particularly helpful when thinking about the current situation in Ukraine. Click here for the link to the BBC video Poppies referenced in the worship. You can follow Reverend Rose on Twitter @RoseHill797 for more worships and top tips.

We are asking schools to write their own laments. These may be written as individuals or as a group or class. We are then asking churches to share these laments during their services or online. The children may like to attend the service to read their lament or they may like to send it to the church. We want to offer as many opportunities as possible for children to express their feelings to God and for their prayers to be heard by the wider community.