All my life grades have been made to seem like
a life or death thing. If I made anything lower than a B, which was still unacceptable, I was in deep trouble.
If I made an A, I could still do better.
I cried when I received my very first B on an assignment in the first grade. I still remember the disgust I had toward my
6 year old self.
For years I let grades control my life.
Then I began my sophomore year of high school.
I couldn't live with the stress and emotions that came with the pressure to make perfect grades.
Despite the constant "Grades are the only thing you have for your future" and the "Grades are who you are" I heard on a weekly basis,
I refused to put grades before my personal happiness.
Before God.
My academic life had become my entire life, and I still wasn't making "good enough" grades.
I wouldn't read my Bible until I was laying in bed at night, already half asleep. I would attend church on Wednesday
nights and think about nothing but the assignments I had to rush home and finish, hardly paying any attention to the message.
My academic life was killing my spiritual life.
I made the improvements that needed to be made for God.
I rededicated my entire life to The Lord, not just the life I had when I wasn't focused on school.
I read my Bible before anything.
When I felt like my school work was interfering with my social life and happiness, I put it aside.
But I now see the past resurfacing.
I am now an average student forced into advanced placement classes
by parents who have bigger ambition for my academic future
than I do for myself.
But I refuse to fall back into the deadly current of
"Grades before God".
I still try my hardest. I still make decent grades.
But overall,
I put God first.
Because that is what counts not just for my earthly future,
but eternity.
C.T. Studd once wrote in a poem,
"Only one life, 'twill soon be past,
Only what's done for Christ will last."
Never let someone tell you that you are not smart, you are hopeless, or you won't go far based on the letter grade on a test.
Grades never have, nor never will, define you.
And more importantly, your hope comes from The Lord, not the score on your SAT.
What you do for God in the time He has given you shows who you truly are.
Whatever your situation, never let it become your
number one priority.
That belongs to God.
Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. - 1 Corinthians 10:31
Love, Syd
{I don't own the picture, btw! Credit to whomever it belongs to (: }
