New School Name

A post back or so, I had mentioned that I was trying to come up with a new school name. This weekend, God gave me one! At the retreat, as we talked about 'The Pursuit of God in the Company of Friends", we talked a lot about showing grace to each other in the Body of Christ. First, God pursued us--we are dead in our sins, and only by the Holy Spirit drawing us to God can we know Him at all. Then, we pursue Him--Ps. 63:8 "I follow close behind you, Your strong right hand holds me securely." Thirdly, we talked about the company of friends, asking the question, 'If God is enough to meet all of our needs, why do we need friends? How do they deepen our relationship with God?" We talked about the community of believers, specifically about showing grace to others since God showed so much grace to us. We discussed some good questions to ask friends when they are going through hard times: How is God pursuing you through this? How does the other person (that you are having problems with) reflect the image of God? What are you seeing about grace through this situation? How can I bear this burden with you? How is God moving you closer to Him through this circumstance? What does God want you to know about Him? Well, through all of this discussion, I thought a lot about grace, and how I really want to model that in our home. I think we often don't show a lot of grace to the people we're closest to, certainly the boys don't seem to, and I want that to change. Then, on Sunday we went to Faircreek for church. It was so good to hear Pastor Elmore preach again! He is going through Philippians, and this week he was on Phil. 2:12-18. As he talked about vs. 15 "so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe", it hit me that this really sums up my goals for our homeschool--that the boys would shine like stars in this dark world, reflecting the grace of God. There's nothing within them or any of us to make us shine--we have to be living in the light of Christ to reflect His light. I want them to shine with God's grace, attracting others to Him. Therefore, the new name of our homeschool is Lumen Gratiae--Light of Grace Classical Academy.