What is joy? Happiness? Cheerfulness?
At Promise, we believe joy is deeper than that. Rather, we see that joy is the feeling that it is good for me to be me, here with you.
It is good for me to be me, here with you.
Our back-to-school muscles are stretching out here at Promise Academy. Just like any community, we must think on what it’s like to be together, how to care for one another, what our roles are in this life together.
After a summer apart, many of these habits are out of practice. The nerves are shorter, the tempers flare. We are tempted to fight for position and power and attention.
We feel the world’s brokenness – in some way – daily. And there are times, as with recent tragic turns in our nation’s life, when this brokenness is known and felt on a larger scale and in shared experience. Joy is replaced with cynicism and tension; hope is replaced with fear.
This is the reality in which we live, and it’s the space where Promise wants to encourage new joy through healing. With one another, though, we can remember: It is good for us to be together.
When the sun is shining through the windows, the sky is blue, the birds are singing outside the first grade classroom, it is good for us to be together.
When it is raining for the fifth day in a row, and the Kindergartners haven’t had an outside recess in a week, and they are climbing the walls (and each other!), it is good for us to be together.
When Mrs. Cumming needs to correct me yet again for being unkind or disrespectful, it is good for us to be together.
When Mrs. Cumming needs to apologize for impatience, it is good for us to be together.
Why?
We love one another. And God is with us.
We love because God loved us first in Jesus Christ, (I John 4:19). Whether we are struggling or thriving, we are committed to one another in love. Our prayer is that we will know Jesus better and show Him to each other, through exceptional acts of humility, compassion, comfort, mercy, grace and friendship.
It is good for us to be together at Promise Academy, where true healing, community, and restoration are practiced and modeled daily for our joy and the glory of God.