By Emily Fox · Editor-in-Chief
Though the weather was warm on the evening of Sunday, Sept. 28, the quad was empty. Instead, emergency vehicles filled the campus’s streets. The sound of sirens replaced the usual laughter and chatter of students. The heavy weight of fear and tension hung over Grove City College.
But that’s not what I’m choosing to remember about last Sunday. That day, the spirit of Grove City College was as powerful as it has been throughout the years I’ve lived here. I’ll remember the heroism of campus safety officers who were willing to put their lives at risk to evacuate the library. I’ll remember the campus and wider Grove City area community coming together to support each other through the dark emotions and anxieties of the day. I’ll remember professors and pastors sending texts and emails checking in on students. I’ll remember phone calls from recent grads and Grovers off-campus, hoping to hear that their friends had found a safe space to shelter in place. I’ll remember feeling an unexplainable sense of peace and the Holy Spirit’s presence resting upon me, sitting in my locked bathroom with my roommate and a girl I’d never met as we held hands and prayed for first responders and students on upper campus. I’ll remember people gathering in the chapel praising God for delivering them from fear and danger after we received word that the college was safe. If I was going to be on any campus experiencing a “swatting” incident, I’m glad it was Grove City College.
My roommate and I sat in the dark for three hours. That’s a lot of time to think. As I waited for the all-clear, I thought to myself that this was the best place I could be, considering the circumstances. I knew I was surrounded by a community of faculty, administrators, students, parents, alumni and churches who were all praying for our safety. Matthew 18:20 tells us that where two or three gather in Christ’s name, He is with them, and God was at Grove City College on Sunday. We live in a world saturated with evil. Evil that prompts someone to falsely perpetuate fear and violence with the intention of hurting their neighbors. But despite that, we can rest knowing that we serve a God who has already conquered evil. The battle is won. He has overcome the world (John 16:30), and as followers of Christ, we participate in that victory through our faith in Him (1 John 5). That is what we cling to in these moments.
I believe that our campus was at its strongest last Sunday. Though I didn’t know what the outcome was going to be, I felt safer surrounded by the prayers of the Grove City community than I would’ve on any other campus. That’s not to say we shouldn’t prioritize implementing more precautionary measures to protect our campus, but during those three hours, my assurance came from knowing that my community here serves the Lord and that my God doesn’t abandon His people. How blessed are we that the Lord of the universe, who is entirely self-fulfilling and does not need us, chooses us out of His own goodness and cares about our well-being? Grove City was shaken last weekend, but it was held together by our cornerstone that is Christ (Eph. 2: 19-21). That is what I choose to remember about Sunday, Sept. 28.
