Prayer works: A brief but powerful example.

Lunch Time|April 30, 2026

The alert rings. This one is different- unexpected. Then a stoic voice begins, “Intruder on campus. Lock all doors or evacuate in an orderly manner. Intruder on campus.” I rush to my door and yell for students to get into my class. For a second I consider opening the side gate by my classroom to allow students to leave campus. At this point I have no idea what’s going on so I decide against it and immediately close my door once I see that students have stopped pouring in.

“Shut up and move to the left!” I command. The students immediately comply and fall silent. I position them out of view of the windows. My room is quite the fortress and I feel relatively safe.

I grab 2 emergency buckets and a knife. The buckets are for the students. The knife is for the enemy.

I make my way up a ramp into a position where I overlook my students from a height. I send out a text message to some of my colleagues asking for an update. Messages are not going through. Most likely due to the cell phone traffic from students messaging their parents.

I begin to pray: “Heavenly Father, protect my students from any harm. If there is an intruder on campus, turn his heart around toward You so that he may see your love and grace and realize that his actions are not necessary. I pray that the police are here or on their way and apprehend the individual and remove him from campus. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Silence.

Then seconds later I receive a notification. It’s a text message from one of my colleagues: “No active shooter on campus. PD is here clearing the campus.”

Hallelujah!!

I share the good news with my students and I can feel the tension leave the room. The typical happy conversations start up once again and there are soft laughters of relief heard.

The lockdown is lifted and the students begin to file out. I go outside and see a mass exodus of students- some joining their parents, some capitalizing on the lockdown to go home early, and some, as I later found out, on their way to the nearest restaurant to stress eat with friends.

In the coming days, I shared my testimony with all of my students. I showed them how prayer truly does work. This was in class during official school hours. I didn’t care. It was the truth and the Holy Spirit told me they needed to hear it. The students received both my prayers and the fact that I had a knife ready to use against an intrude with acceptance and appreciation.