After a full semester of study and learning, the new has pretty much worn off the 2006-2007 school year. Students, teachers, and parents have experienced ups and downs in their trip together down learning lane. First, it was the excitement of a new school year, closely followed by the trauma of change from the old. The previous year's classroom and its familiar expectations gave way to more challenging pursuits. It wasn't long, however, and the challenges became manageable and learning productivity, with accompanying rewards, was definately on the rise.

The "human condition" yields irregularly spaced bumps along the learning road...distractions, resistance, laziness, apathy, "attitude"...protective defense mechanisms of all kinds. These negatives make learning and life unpleasant for students, parents, and teachers alike...but they are unavoidable.

On the other hand, they also provide opportunities for us to minister to the learning needs of God's young people, to chart the paths of their lives with Him at their side. By the grace of God, it's this ministering that makes all things new again.

Unlike so many material possessions that lose their luster and functiionality through time and use, people can be restored. they can become new again. Flagging efforts at learning can be revitalized and renewed. Resistance, apathy, and confrontational attitudes can be dissolved into a willing spirit of cooperation, mutual support, and helpfulness.

With Paul the Apostle we proclaim, "You were taught, with regard to your former life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new welf, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." (Ephesians 4:22-24)

At the beginning of a year, a semester, in fact, every day, God with us and in us makes us new.