Your Portion for Today

I write this as our Year 12s are sitting with their results and holding a kaleidoscope of thoughts and emotions in tension, and as parents are hovering, waiting to support or celebrate or console but relegated to the sidelines for a period as their children have to take the first peek on their own.

For them and for all of the students, the school year has finished. They have accumulated a collection of experiences that have helped develop their understanding, form their views and shape their character. They have developed relational and learning skills and have a fuller understanding of how the world and people and themselves work. Reports and results will get filed, books will be sold, and I suspect, there may be a ceremonial burning of revision notes in some households. 

I think there is a lot to the story of God leaving manna in the desert to provide for the Israelites. Enough for each day but with a prohibition to collect, store or hoard. God knows our character too well. If we have a thing, why not have more of a thing? Why not collect more, why not get up earlier and compete, get the largest pile, recruit collectors, sell to others? But God is onto us. This is your portion for today. And tomorrow there will be another portion. Don’t live in fear of the future, don’t long for the past. Let’s not be people who cross off days racing toward an imaginary utopia, nor be people who wallow in an indulgent pleasure.

The year has finished, and it can feel huge – a crescendo! But our mandate for tomorrow is just the same as it was for today – seek to honour God in whatever context we find ourselves. 

From God’s perspective (I think!), the real achievements from yesterday, the things that don’t melt away, the currency of His Kingdom, aren’t the ATAR or the report – it was the comfort given to a friend who was struggling, an application to a challenging task, a decision to let go of a wrong. 

As the year concludes I would like to say to the students - well done! I hope you enjoy the holidays, continue to grow in faith, and are brave enough to continue to try new things. And I hope you are refreshed and keen to develop the next part of your story and to contribute your part to THE story. 

I also want to express my deep gratitude to our teachers and support staff for all their hard work. There have been injuries and significant grief and loss for a number of staff this year, and you have continued to give, whatever your personal circumstance.

We say farewell to the following staff: 

John Gardiner, Lauren Foster, Louise Farrell-Hadwin, Monica O’Gorman, Bethany Wilson and Rachel Wherrett who have all been a blessing and left their mark on our community.

John Gardiner will be particularly missed. He has been at DCC since 1991 and taught thousands of students and many of our parents, and we thank him for his legacy of creative learning. For John, a science experiment wasn’t optimal unless we had to put in special health and safety measures and in our increasingly risk averse world he has helped keep the wonder of science alive.

To all in our community I hope that the break is replenishing, and that the awesome wonder of God’s decision to intervene in our world in the form of a vulnerable baby in Bethlehem would strike us again, and cause us to grin in childish happiness.

Merry Christmas.