Grace in Action: Hillcrest Lower School’s January Virtue

Each month at Hillcrest, students are invited into something deeper than a lesson or a theme. Through a unified and intentional virtue program, the Lower School is being shaped in how students think, respond, forgive, and love. This January, that focus is Grace: loving others despite their faults.

Grace is not an abstract idea at Hillcrest. It is taught, modeled, practiced, and named, so that students begin to recognize it not only as something God gives, but as something they are called to live out in their daily relationships.

During chapel today, Academic Dean Julie Stender introduced grace by anchoring students in Scripture:

“The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.”
— Romans 6:23

She helped students see something powerful hidden in plain sight. The verse could have ended after the first seven words: “The wages of sin is death.” Period. That is what we earn. That is what justice alone would deliver.

But God does not end the sentence there.

Grace, students learned, is the comma, not the period.

God pauses the story and adds something we did not earn, a free gift. Life with Jesus. Forgiveness. Restoration. Grace is God saying, “I know you don’t deserve this, but I still choose you.”

To make grace tangible, students were shown a wrapped gift. Before giving it away, simple questions were asked:

Did you clean my house?
Did you obey me all week?
Did you do anything to earn this?

The answer, of course, was no.

That’s what makes it a gift.

If grace depended on perfection, the gift would stay wrapped forever. Instead, God gives because He loves. And once we receive that gift, we are called to reflect it to others.

Grace sounds like:

“I forgive you.”
“I won’t hold this against you forever.”
“I still love you, even when you mess up.”

Students then heard one of Jesus’ most powerful stories, the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–24). It is a story many children know, but one that continues to shape the heart at every age.

A son demands his inheritance, dishonors his father, wastes everything, and ends up broken and hungry. When he finally returns home, he expects punishment. He believes he has lost his place as a son.

But the father does something unexpected.

He runs.

He doesn’t lecture. He doesn’t shame. He doesn’t say, “I told you so.” He embraces his son and restores him completely.

That, students learned, is grace.

The son deserved consequences. Instead, he received love. Just as God meets us—not with crossed arms, but with open ones.

Hillcrest’s virtue program doesn’t stop at understanding. It moves students toward action.

Grace, students were reminded, is not permission to sin. Grace does not say wrong is right. Grace says, “I still love you, and I won’t give up on you.”

In daily school life, grace looks like:

• Forgiving a friend who hurt your feelings

• Giving someone another chance

• Choosing kindness instead of getting even

• Loving others when they fail

These are not small lessons. They are habits of the heart being formed early, grounded in the Gospel, and reinforced through chapel, classroom conversations, and relationships.

By naming and teaching virtues like grace, Hillcrest’s Lower School is doing more than managing behavior. It is forming students who understand why forgiveness matters, why love costs something, and why grace changes how we see others.

Grace reminds us that our story doesn’t end with what we deserve. Because of Christ, there is always more to the sentence.

And as Hillcrest students learn to receive that grace, they are learning, day by day, how to give it freely to a world that desperately needs it.