It's Not the End

Today we are preparing a mailing that includes report cards, calendars, supply lists, Stanford test reports, and summer reading assignments. It is an annual procedure that closes off the past school year and helps families prepare for the next one. As we fill the manila envelopes, we catch glances of students' final grades for the year and make remarks like, "Wow! She really did quite well this year," and, "I think I will need to call his parents to schedule a meeting, because he has to make up that course he failed." Fortunately, there are only very few phone class that must be made. We also make note of who will not be getting calendars, supply lists, and summer reading assignments, since those students are not returning next fall. We always have mixed emotions about students leaving GGCA, but ultimately we view a student's departure as the sovereign work of God in his or her life. Our God is a BIG God, and His work in his children is not limited to their time spent here at GGCA. I like to think that students who choose to go to school elsewhere are being sent out like missionaries to other places where the life they received here at GGCA can be imparted to other students who are not part of GGCA. I don't think that you can spend time here in our school and remain totally untouched by the Word and the Spirit that are part of the everyday life of our school.

I remember a high school student who was expelled from our school when he was in tenth or eleventh grade. A few years later, he called the church one night when I happened to be there rehearsing the church's annual Easter play. He was calling from an aircraft carrier in the Pacific because he was going through something in his life and needed spiritual guidance. This young man did not attend Greater Grace church, but he had attended Greater Grace Christian Academy, and he remembered the love and the truth he had experienced here, so when he needed help hearing from God, he decided that the people at Greater Grace would help him, and we did. That was many years ago, but I see him in church now when I am on stage singing during worship. Whenever I see him, I think of that night when he called from the other side of the world because of the investment that he had received while attending GGCA. At the time he was expelled, I thought, "What a shame. I guess that's the last we'll see of him." I am so happy that I was wrong, and that our BIG amazing God continued the work he started in our school, despite my lack of faith.

"So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it."

Isaiah 55:11