Thankful Every Day…

I was the only P1 the first year my home church in Ohio started a Christian school.  I was at that school for 12 years, and then I went on to a Christian university for four years, taught P6 and P7 in a Christian school for two years, and tutored Christian homeschoolers for another year before moving to Scotland.  ‘Wow’, you are probably thinking, ‘that’s a significant Christian education bubble.’  And it was.  But it gave me a unique perspective that I wouldn’t trade for anything.

A lot of people would have called me sheltered.  I was.  And I thank the Lord for it.  Is it such a terrible thing, as you learn about the world, to be sheltered from those who would call evil good and good evil?  Is it so horrible to have teachers who emphasise the fear of the Lord as the beginning of knowledge and call us to righteousness and holiness?  Did I really miss out on hearing about anti-God perspectives from those who believe them?  Was I hard done by in not having enough opportunities to see and experience what the world values?  Obviously not.  I believe being sheltered in this way was used by God to make me stronger and more ready to be in the world but not of it.

But being sheltered is merely a negative benefit.  The positive benefits of my Christian education were even greater.  For hours each day I learned about absolute truth while many in my generation were learning that truth was relative to your circumstances.  I learned to see the scientific world as God’s world, maths and grammar and spelling as demonstrating His order and precision, literature, music, and art as mirroring His creativity, and history as showing forth His sovereignty and providence.  I learned to use God’s Word as the lens through which all of life is to be seen, and I memorised Scripture (passages I still remember to this day).  But my education was not just about head knowledge.  I was confronted with my sin and reminded of my need for a Saviour.  I was exhorted to love the Lord my God with all my heart and my neighbour as myself.  I was called to live, by His grace, a holy life as a follower of Christ.  And I was encouraged to dwell on the immense love the Lord had for me demonstrated in the gospel.  For those hours each day we were putting on the armour of God, we were preparing to go out and uphold the truth of God and take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

As a teacher I was incredibly privileged to be able to express God’s truth to my students.  There is a tremendous freedom in teaching in a Christian school and being able to bring God’s Word to bear on every subject and every situation.  It was a joy to pray with and for my students, and to see the Lord working in their lives.  To be used by God as part of the process of helping boys and girls learn to do everything to His glory is an amazing thing.

I am thankful every single day for my Christian education.  My life has been full of blessings, but this has been one of the greater ones the Lord has given me.  And that is why I am interested and invested in Sunrise Christian School – because I would love to see everyone have an opportunity to be blessed in this way.