Awards

Last Friday was senior breakfast and awards ceremony. Monday Nate had told me not to come, he wouldn’t get anything. Thursday he said I might want to come. He was getting two academic awards and a baseball award. Academic awards were for completing the highest course of study. Not GPA, but number of credits and courses taken. The other academic was for his scores on state assessments. The baseball award was for Outstanding Senior Athlete. It’s the only picture I took that remotely resembles people, so I’m sharing it with this commentary. He is next to the basketball girl and boy, then bowling, cross country, etc. I was proud of many of these kids, Nate’s friends, Whitney’s friends older brothers. There were kids that only received academic awards. There were kids that only received music awards. There were kids who received some of each. Although it is hard in large high schools to be involved in music and sports.


I’ve spent 4 years riding him about his grades and his GPA. I found out after the awards, AFTER THE AWARDS, after 4 years of harping, that I’m more proud of him for decisions he made in high school that I didn’t know about till he was done. Things that will carry over to adult life. There were 8 seniors on the baseball team. He was the outstanding player. In academics, he needed 22 credits to graduate. He was well over that. He never took easy classes. Even senior year when he needed 1.5 credits, an English and half a government, he took a full load. He did take weights, mandated by baseball coach but when he could’ve taken swimming and team sports and cooking, he took physics and pre calc/trig to be better prepared for college. Instead of padding his GPA, he learned something. In reading the Gospels again, I thought of this passage (and then backed up to verse 12 because it’s always worth hearing) Matthew 7:12-14 “Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets. 13 You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell[a] is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. 14 But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.”
The reason this stuck out to me is there is 1800 kids in the high school. Less than 200 received awards. And the academic awards were there for everyone. They could have given one to every student. The hard way, the rewarding way is often narrow and not an easy path. The easy way is wide and well traveled. The Bible is so full of wisdom for life. Even though I know this is talking about our Salvation through Christ, there is only one way, through the blood he shed on the Cross to cover our sins and pay our debt, and that the path to hell is wide and many go that way, it has so many parallels in life. One out of every nine students received an award. The narrow way. The way of hard work and character and discipline. The narrow way is not always fun. But the rewards of the narrow way are well worth the effort.