“Valedictorian? What’s that?”
That’s the same question my 14-year-old self asked when I first heard the word.
A Valedictorian is a student who graduates with the highest grade point average from her/his high school class.
As great as that title may seem, I was honestly not the most qualified student for it. Up until the end of my freshman year, I didn’t know what a valedictorian was, nor did I ever think I could be one. I never even thought I could work hard enough as one. All I knew was that I had a desire to be one. But desires don’t make things happen, action does.
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In the prime days of my high school years, I was this quiet, scrawny, African girl who dreamed big, but due to my fear of being a foreign girl, I locked my dreams up. I simply had the African mentality of “you must get an A in every class.” No A=failure. So I did the work I had to do to get an A in a class. I took classes just to take them, pass them, and then move on to the next grade level. Simply moving through academic motions. Going from class to class, grade level to grade level, but what was I gaining from it all? Nothing but meaningless ‘As’ on my report card. (Yes an ‘A’ can be meaningless if you really didn’t gain anything from it.)
I was tired of just moving through high school and not gaining anything from it. I was tired of just doing work just to do it. I wanted something more. Something that I could look back on and think to myself “wow thank God for so and so’s class” or “if not for this person or that teacher, I probably wouldn’t know this.” It wasn’t until the end of my freshman year that I began to make the most of my education. From that year forward, getting an A wasn’t a goal anymore, being proactive was, and the A’s thus followed suit.
Fast forward to my senior year in high school… I found myself participating in almost everything in school (except athletics of course cause ya girl had no athletic bone in her). I was stressed. I had no energy to continuously stay up every night finishing procrastinated assignments. I wanted to give up the valedictorian goal that I had been working towards for the past couple of years. So what happened?
God happened. I learned that even in my education, I’m not working for myself, but I’m working for God. My high school education was my primary job and I had to stay faithful in working hard because I wasn’t just doing it for myself, or my parents, but I was doing it unto the Lord.
When the reason you’re doing something takes a 180 degree turn, change begins to happen. I realized that my education was in essence a ministry. Let me say that again.
Your education is a ministry.
Your education is a ministry.
Your education is a ministry.
If I could copy and paste that 100 more times, I would. There’s a reason you are in school, there’s a reason you are in that class, theres a reason you are learning something from that syllabus. That reason is bigger than yourself. Its not just so you can get a diploma or a degree. It’s not just so you can move on to the next level. It’s so that Christ may be glorified through you.
“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven.” Matthew 5:16
So when my reason changed, my average work ethic changed with it. I didn’t want to become valedictorian just to say “yea I graduated top of my class,” I wanted to be valedictorian so that Christ would be glorified through my testimony. So that people can see that a quiet, scrawny, African girl from Nigeria who didn’t ever believe in herself or her dreams could actually achieve them, not with her strength, but with the grace and grace alone of Jesus Christ.
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