Great Lakes Adventist Academy

Hi everyone! I know I just posted recently, but I couldn’t wait to share with you what we have been up to this past week here at GLAA. 

As soon as we got back from Bible Camp, our SA Student Week of Prayer began. This week of prayer is probably my favorite one all year. I love to see my fellow students lead song service, speak up front, and play or sing for special music. Our theme for this week was “The Time is Now”, and all of the talks were based on Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. Each student speaker prepared a message that corresponded with their specific verse. Some of the talks showed us how certain Bible characters had demonstrated the seasons shown in their verses, others showed us what it might look like in our life. All of them were a huge blessing and made me think about those verses in a way that I hadn’t before. 

A couple of the talks really stood out to me. The first had a verse that was about  how  there is “a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.” This verse always confused me a little bit. I always wondered what stones had to do with anything. But this student used stones to represent our burdens like bitterness, expectations, our attitudes, and relationships. He related this verse to the story of Joseph, and how he had to cast away bitterness for his brothers and the pain of their betrayal, how in prison, he gathered skills he would need later on in life, and how Joseph realized that although his brothers meant to hurt him, God had a plan and was using it for good. He also spoke about how now is the time for us to “gather stones” by building our relationships, gathering wisdom, and making intentional decisions about what we spend our time on.  

Another one had the verse about how there is “a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance”. She spoke about how she had just lost a friend recently, which would obviously fall under the category of a time to mourn. But she also reminded us that God promised that the times of weeping and of mourning will be temporary. She said that it was the small things that we do that show what we live for. She reminded us that we aren’t promised tomorrow, so we should live for Jesus today, love those around us, and make the world around us a better place. 

Our week of prayer ended on Thursday evening with an Agape Feast. Instead of heading over to the chapel for our nightly meeting, we all made our way over to the fitness center, where our SA officers had prepared our meeting for us. The lights were dim, candles scattered the “stage”, and a cross set up front reminded us all why we were really there. Dean, or “Mama” Linda, shared our message that evening. As we sat listening to her speak, I knew that God was there with us. She shared about how when we share Jesus with those around us, it often feels like we aren’t making a difference at all, but we never know how far reaching the effects of our witnessing will be. We never know how God could be using us. She shared with us how Jesus gives us hope, how He is our hope, and how the world can never take that away from us. 

I’m so glad I have the privilege of attending a school that allows and encourages its students to grow closer to God each and every day. I love seeing how God works in my life and in the lives of my fellow students to draw us closer to Him. 

Love,

Elena

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 

“To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to gain, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.”