I was walking to school on one of those rare mornings with a clear, pre-dawn sky, and low-lying fog. It was cool, quiet, and still. The world felt like it was at peace. As I came toward the school, there was a glow\u2014a radiance\u2014causing me to catch my breath. I immediately pulled out my phone and took a couple of pictures. Unfortunately, the pictures do not do the experience justice.<\/p>\n
Seeing the light streaming out from the new building set my mind on Moses\u2019 description of when the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. (Exodus 40:34-38), or when the shepherds witnessed the glory of the Lord shining around them (Luke 2:8-14). In the same way, I know our hope and prayer is that the Lord fill our buildings with His presence. I also thought about how we are to be a light to the world.<\/p>\n
I caught a tiny glimpse of a cosmic picture\u2014the Light of the world casting back the darkness. I do not know if anyone driving by was struck by the bright light pouring out of the new Learning Commons<\/strong><\/span>, or if anyone else even made the connection to our school\u2019s calling to be a light in the world, but in that moment, it was real to me.<\/p>\n Our school\u2019s mission statement includes the phrase, \u201cShaping God\u2019s world.\u201d In this time of a global pandemic, finding opportunities for our students to reach out and connect with our broader community is challenging.<\/p>\n We have done some unique things like a food and toy drive for the local Abbotsford food bank. One of our secondary classes also wrote encouraging cards and notes and placed them on cars in the staff parking lot of Abbotsford Regional Hospital just before Christmas.<\/p>\n Still, we miss the days when our middle school students went on service projects in other schools, seniors care homes, the food bank, or local not-for-profit thrift stores. Of course, we hope and pray that in the not-too-distant future our students can once again be lights in these places in our community.<\/p>\n In the meantime, we are placing more emphasis on small actions that help us shine our light to others.<\/strong><\/span> We make room for other pedestrians on the sidewalk when we are out for a run in PE, and we are renewing our emphasis on how we treat each other at school.<\/p>\n And I am encouraged by all these small actions by our students. We are called to go forth and shine our light where ever we are. This means we shine in our broader community as well as right here on our school campuses, just like that glow of light radiating out from the new Learning Commons. What are you doing to shine your light to others?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was walking to school on one of those rare mornings with a clear, pre-dawn sky, and low-lying fog. It was cool, quiet, and still. The world felt like it was at peace. As I came toward the school, there was a glow\u2014a radiance\u2014causing me to catch my breath. I immediately pulled out my phone […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":5096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,16],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-5092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-school","category-school-vision"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5092"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=5092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Reaching Out<\/h2>\n