See You At The Pole Day: from celebration to heartbreak to humility

Today was See You At The Pole Day.

See You at the Pole (SYATP) is an annual gathering of Christian students of all ages at a flagpole in front of their local school for prayer, scripture-reading and worship, during the early morning before school starts. The American SYATP events occur on the 24 of September at 7:00 A.M. while gathering around your school's flag pole . The events began in 1990, in the United States, where public schools cannot sponsor prayers and some Christians see public schools as hostile to Christian students. It has grown by word of mouth, announcements at youth rallies and churches, and the Internet and now occurs internationally. In 2005, over two million students in the U.S. participated, as well as students in Canada, Cote d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Germany, Ghana, Guam, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, South Korea, Malaysia, Nigeria, Norway, Peru, Portugal, Scotland, and South Africa. (Wikipedia)

I had not known about this word-of-mouth event until I moved from godless New England to the bible belt. Every September 24, Facebook comes alive with photos of large groups of high school students at various schools praying publicly. Like this, from my town in Georgia:

Or this, from Alabama:

From Tennessee:

From Florida:

And then there's this, from Texas. The boy's dad wrote, "My son Brandon standing alone, praying, at H.  High School, for his friends & campus"

It's absolutely heartbreaking.

It's absolutely humbling.

Lord, bless this young man richly. Lord, may my faith be as strong as his. In the face of absolute rejection and total isolation, knowing that no matter what the world says, I KNOW that You are worth standing alone for.