Rockbridge Academy Blog
Unexpected Lessons on Grand Tour
April 25, 2024
Grand Tour is a very unique experience that Rockbridge Academy students get to enjoy. On this academic trip, students spend two and a half weeks traveling to many parts of Greece and Italy such as Athens, Corinth, Rome, Sienna, and Florence. They get to actually see the places that they have learned about for so many years and understand the way the ancients thought through the physical things they left behind. True to the classical Christian method, though, the goal of Grand Tour is not merely to grow students intellectually, but to teach students to trust in God's redemptive work. God taught me many lessons through my experiences on Grand Tour. He did this through revealing my sin, showing me His abounding mercy, and exemplifying His greatness.
The first way that God worked in me on Grand Tour was through revealing my sin to me. Through this He gave me the opportunity to grow as one of His children. While on Grand Tour, we were in a new city almost every night, away from home, taking in large amounts of information, and constantly spending time with our classmates. While all these things were great blessings, they also opened the door for certain temptations. After conversations with some of my classmates, I found that many of us struggled with the sin of comparison. God made each of us uniquely and blessed each of us in different ways, but so often I found myself coveting the talents, relationships, and reputations of my peers. This is not the way that a child of God who has been blessed so much by Him should behave.
God helped me to fight this temptation through journaling. Mr. Keehner required us to write one page of reflection on how we saw God at work each day. This process kept me from dwelling in my own thoughts and forced me to write them out and think about how I should respond in light of what Christ had done for me. I needed to rely on His sovereign will in order to learn contentment.
Another lesson that God taught me while I was on Grand Tour was how His mercy applies to my day-to-day life. While we were on the bus one morning, Mrs. Ball read to us Psalm 103:10, which says, “He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.” Now as a Christian, I already knew this, but I had not been living as if I knew it. I knew that God would not condemn me because Christ had been condemned for me, but I lived holding my breath, waiting for God to send temporal consequences for my sin, which would, no doubt, ruin my trip. One evening I realized, as I was looking out at the sun falling beneath the Adriatic Sea, that God had blessed me with yet another amazing day, yet I had fallen short of what He called me to time and time again. The verse that Mrs. Ball had read came back to me, and I was brought to tears by the abounding mercy of God. Each day He continued to delight in blessing me when what I really deserved was punishment.
The last way that God grew me on Grand Tour was through exemplifying His greatness. When I sat at the top of the mountain at Delphi and looked out over the sprawling mountain ranges, the misty olive groves below, and the wildflowers which grew out of the face of the rock, I realized how small everything in my life was in comparison to the greatness of God. It brought back words to my mind of a song that I had not sung since I was in elementary Sunday school. While the words of this song are so simple, I continued to meditate on the mysteries behind them for the rest of the trip.
Lord, You are more precious than silver;
Lord, You are more costly than gold;
Lord, You are more beautiful than diamonds,
And nothing I desire compares to You.
Lord, Your love is higher than the mountains;
Lord Your love is deeper than the seas;
Lord, Your love encompasses the nations,
And YET, You live right here inside of me.
It truly is amazing that a God so vast and great dwells in the souls of sinful mortals like us. He continues to sanctify us through His holy word and the experiences we have in our lives. He graciously reveals to us our sins, but readily showers us with mercy. His greatness is revealed to us through all His works, and I was truly blessed to have seen him at work in such a unique way on Grand Tour.
Jessi Wenger is a senior at Rockbridge Academy who has been a part of the school since she was in kindergarten. Her favorite areas of study are theology, literature, and philosophy. In her free time, she enjoys participating in performing arts, such as the Rockbridge musical and variety show, along with taking and teaching dance classes. She also enjoys writing poetry, cooking, reading, gardening, and making homemade soaps and candles.
Godspeed and Resurrection
April 10, 2024
While all that borrows life from thee is ever in thy care, and everywhere that Man can be, thou God art present there.
I Sing the Almighty Power of God—Isaac Watts
In the opening week of school, we spread the word that the unifying theme for the year at Rockbridge Academy would be the simple salutation, Godspeed. In an essay about Godspeed written in early September, I challenged our community to ask God how to abide in Christ in the individual moments of life, to take each step under His lordship, and so to literally do life at God’s speed. Because He has seemingly hardwired a certain pace for most activities of daily life, we should find ourselves slowing down (or speeding up) to intentionally keep in step with His lordship over each task of our day.
From the setting aside of schole weeks throughout the year in upper school with extended time for meditation and discovery, to the weekly focus on theological truth in grammar school during Monday Morning Catechism, or even in our personal goals, like the challenge I made to myself to slow down enough to learn every child’s name by the end of October, Godspeed has been about a joyful and intentional stewardship of the minutes and hours granted us. As a result, I see the community of Rockbridge Academy loving God more worshipfully and loving neighbor more intentionally.
From the Moment to the Momentary
But alas, no sooner had the September leaves started changing, than the Lord began impressing on us an even more profound lesson of Godspeed. Having been around this community for many years, I can attest that there has never been a season so unspeakably tender, so poignantly Providential, and yet so exceedingly painful for Rockbridge families as the valley of tears we have experienced in recent months. Rockbridge Academy has had more dads inexplicably pass away than one can count on one hand. This has been as grueling as it has been mindboggling. Yet one thing we do know is that if Godspeed is about the reality of abiding in Christ’s lordship each moment, nothing reveals a sense of that lordship like the tragedies that show us how momentary this life can be.
In his book, The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis famously stated that, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” Humbly, I would posit that our Father has been shouting love messages to us through this succession of recent calamities. Contrary to adding insult to injury, these multiplied losses within the Rockbridge community have somehow served to amplify the LORD’s love for His people …to a cosmic proportion. On one hand, such a deluge of events causes us to fall on our faces and cry out in holy disbelief, “The Lord Almighty! He reigns!” Yet at the same time, witnessing over and over the redemptive stories brought out at each funeral, seeing the fruit of the Gospel being celebrated, and repeatedly witnessing the people of God close ranks around hurting families in service, mourning, and generosity only confirms beyond doubt that we are held firmly by a loving Father.
Not One Drop Wasted
Years ago, when my own dad, a very healthy sixty-year-old, died unexpectedly in his sleep, God met me through the book of Ecclesiastes and did battle with my throbbing disbelief. The words on the page did not remove the aching pain that ebbed and flowed in my heart, but relentless truth from God’s word galvanized an internal assurance that Christ has forever removed the sting of death. Regardless of whether we want to acknowledge it or not… Love wins. Joy conquers. Jesus reigns. In the same way, raw, unadulterated, industrial grade assurance is being poured out on our community through these tragedies, assurance that Jesus Christ rules over all. May the year of 2023-24 serve as a lasting witness to our children.
As we celebrated Easter, both mourning and celebrating over recent events, we are forced to the bold precipice of the resurrection and have to admit that it could not be with caprice or coldness that the Father offered up his own Son to death on a cross. Likewise, in the months ahead, we can be confident that our loving Father will not waste one drop of this year’s agony in His plans to bring the abiding good of His redemption to this community.
Godspeed. He is Risen!
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Worship