I Give you peace…

‘Peace to all who enter here’

Four years ago Josh Garrels released an album titled ‘Peace to All Who Enter Here’. It was the perfect album for the time as he wove a beautiful collection of soft hymns and spiritual songs to bless a hurting community with the peace of God. Every time I listen to it I am blessed to encounter this peace.

As followers of Christ, the gift of peace is a powerful blessing we can give to the world. Jesus first reveals this power to 70 of His disciples as He sends them out telling them that they could literally give or take this peace from wherever they go. In the 2000 years that God’s people have been giving peace around the world, there are now many spaces that can claim God’s Peace.

I believe that our Christian school is one of these places. I love the story of how a few disciples of Christ saw this land and knew that they would clear it and build what we now call Heritage Christian Academy.

One of the families that clearly saw this opportunity was the Miller family. Today when you come into Heritage, if you look to your right as you come through the airlock, you can read the plaque that credits the faithful act of Gene and Betty Miller. How wonderful it is to still have the Miller family as a part of this school, and how amazing it is that the Christian school they helped build and bless with God’s peace still has that peace today.

All of us at HCA know this, but because we experience it so much, we can miss it. I got a good reminder of this when last week we hosted a cross country meet that invited six other schools. Robin Bartell has worked hard over the years to develop a XC program at Heritage and in that development has established a track right here. In the past few years we have not had big numbers come, but this year that all changed. These six other schools brought our total number of participants to over 100.

That is great, but with only one porta-jon, we had to figure out a way to open our building to let the guests use our facilities. I decided to sit in the vestibule and welcome everyone in and show them the bathroom. As I sat there welcoming our guests, I got to hear them talk as they entered. It was so encouraging. I am not overstating it when I say that the adults, high schoolers and middle schoolers all kept saying the same thing. “This place is really nice, it just feels peaceful here.”

There it was. They saw it. Peace. There are a lot of things a Christian school strives to be. I am glad to say that we are a place of peace. Thank you, Gene and Betty, and thank you to the many that have blessed this place with the peace of God. May all who enter here find that peace and come to know God more fully. Amen!