During graduation we traditionally give our graduates their diploma, a book and some cake, usually in that order. For most of our graduates, it is after thousands of hours of interactive instruction and discipleship that we come to the end of our school’s influence. We ask ourselves, have we said the right words and done the right things? Were hearts and minds receptive to those words and things?

In a sermon by Cotton Mather to graduate-aged students he says, “A young person brought home to God has his understanding enlightened, his fantasy regulated, his memory purified, his will rectified, his affections brought into order. He gives up his whole heart unto God. He reserves no power of his mind, but concerning all of them, He says, “Oh! Let my Saviour take possession of it.”

In the end nothing is more important than the reality of true conversion in the life of each graduate. It is our prayer that ‘Saviour possession’ has replaced self-possession. Whether graduates frame their diplomas or not, eat their cake or not, or read and apply their books, ‘Around the Wicket Gate’ and ‘PAILS’ or not, in the end what’s important is who possesses them, themselves or Jesus.

This summer break may your families be brought home to God, experience leisure in the LORD and receive blessed rest and restoration.

~ Mr. & Mrs. Long