Ten Verses cards

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:16-17

I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
Psalm 119:11

Last night I listened to a sermon* by Voddie Bauchman, and he was exhorting parents to have their children read and memorize scripture. He said, "You've got to pour everything in there you can get in there! Get it in there. And when you think you've gotten it in there, just stuff a little bit more."

I laughed out loud at that, and replayed it for Mark, because that is so my motto. :) Just stuff it in. Right now, when our children are literally sponges, when they are able to memorize and retain what they've memorized so easily, we want to pour God's truth into them.

In June, Mark and I each made a list of the top five things we value in terms of homeschooling our children, and "memorizing God's word" made it to the top of both of our lists. We want to stuff it in there. :)

As I set out to select our memory verses this year, I asked God to help me find verses that would suit each of our children. Instead of just choosing several verses that we would all memorize together, I wanted each child to have his or her "own" verses; verses tailored to their individual personalities and/or particular areas of struggle. I began by listing each child's name in my journal and then noting particular patterns of sin I see in them. For one child, these are the words that I initially jotted down: self-control, lies, self-worth, obedience, love. Then I found verses that dealt with those areas.

For instance, one of the verses that child will be memorizing is this one:

The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in men who are truthful. (Proverbs 12:22)

Then I rounded out their "set" by choosing verses that are specific to that child's interests or personality. One of our boys is very imaginative and is always telling stories. I made sure that some of his verses contained illustrative language:

After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. they were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb." All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, saying "Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen." (Revelation 7:9-12)

So at this point I had a handful of verses for each child, but I still wasn't sure how to put them all together for our memorization time.

Then I came across this "Ten Verses cards" post of Kendra's, so I shamelessly stole this concept from her.

I wrote out ten verses on a card (actually, it took two cards) for our four oldest children (yes! Adelia (2) gets her own set of verses, too!), and they look like this:


Everyone's verse #1 is our theme verse for the year. That space on the left-hand side is for stickers. When they learn a verse- and can recite it (with reference) to daddy- they get to choose a sticker and stick it next to the verse on their card. I showed them the envelope labeled: "10 Verses Stickers" that is tucked into our memory box. It's amazing to me how motivating stickers are. They were seriously enthused about the prospect of getting to choose a sticker. Kids are so great!



*Sermon link here, if you're interested. (And thank you, Cutzi, for the link!)