Emily Lilley
Class 3B
Since the first time I came into contact with Heritage Preparatory School, the Lord’s hand has been guiding me into a teaching position here. After graduating with a Bachelor’s Degree in Education and Social Sciences from Auburn University, this will be my first year in teaching elementary school.
Until my four wonderful years in “the loveliest village on the plains” in Alabama, I lived most of my life in Chattanooga, Tennessee. There I had the blessing of graduating from Girls Preparatory School. At GPS, I had the benefit of studying under some of the country’s best educators. I experienced so many fantastic teachers who saw and demonstrated the process of learning as a joy and a passion. These teachers took their subjects from the one dimensional page to a glittering, multi-faceted world of people, places, pasts, and pursuits. Whether it was the depth and imagination of literature, the laws of geometry which give order to form, or the decisions and personalities that have shaped our world, learning these things was not a chore, or simply a state-mandated rite of passage. Rather, it was an exciting honor and privilege to be whole-heartedly pursued and fully engaged in.
Here at Heritage, the atmosphere seems the same. What a joy to see children in an environment where they will be able to understand school as this same kind of a miraculous learning experience from such a young age. How much greater the joy to see this learning experience given strength, unity, and meaning through the perspective of a Christian world-view. Academic pursuit and knowledge are glorious things, to be sure, but they are glorious as gifts and means to inspire wonder for, and draw us closer to, the composer and creator of the Heavens and the Earth.
Author Donald Miller wrote that the stars strewn across the night sky were put there by the Lord “to dazzle us, like a love letter.” My hope as an educator is that through me, the Lord will bless my students with the thrill of beginning a life-long devotion to learning about the dazzling love letter from our Comforter and Creator that is the world around us.
