The First Day

Summer is over, and the Jones children head into a new school year at Glendale Christian Academy — where, this year, the halls are full of family. Their aunts, aunt Jessica and aunt Tanya, are teachers; their grown cousins, the twins Alexis and Alyssa, are classroom aides for the very first time. So when the first-day jitters give way to a building stacked with people who love them, the Joneses are reminded that God really does go in with you. But there is one boy at the cubbies who has none of that — Micah, brand-new in town, crying quietly with nobody in the world to sit by. And Ava Grace, six years old and wrapped in more belonging than she can hold, discovers that once God has gone in with you, He has a way of turning you right around to go in with somebody else. Scripture: Joshua 1:9; Deuteronomy 31:8 (KJV).