Yesterday, North Heights honored our graduating seniors, and with May now here, Graduation month has arrived. Young people will soon be leaving elementary school, off to be middle schoolers, feeling all big and grown up. Middle schoolers are soon to advance to high school, where social pressures and adolescent struggles are at their most challenging. High schoolers have it the hardest: They are soon to leave the familiarity of their school (and possibly their home), saying goodbye to a rigid routine that has defined them for thirteen of their eighteen years of life.
The word “graduation” comes from the Latin word “gradas” and means “a degree.” That sounds like one thing but it actually means another. It sounds like the kind of degree you get when you graduate school. This word is not that, however (though the etymology is the same). You can also translate the word “gradas” as “a step.”
In other words, the word refers to “degrees” as in “degrees on a thermometer,” indicating a rising temperate one step at a time. It’s the same word that, in the English, became “gradual,” as in, “small, incremental steps toward a goal.”
Young people are soon to be “graduating.” They are soon to be taking what feels like the biggest “next step” in their lives. At the end of the day, however, it’s still just a step. It’s just one step. It’s just the next step. There will be countless more.
Whatever you pursue in life, you must take that first step toward obtaining it. And then, with that step done, you must take another, and another, until you have reached your goal, whatever it be. What are you going to do with the rest of your life? Will you take a step toward becoming a lawyer or a doctor? Will you step toward being a carpenter or an electrician? Will you step toward preaching or teaching? Whatever it is, do not take that next step without holding the hand of God and trusting Him to guide you where He would have you walk (Jeremiah 10:23).
Set your mind on becoming a faithful child of God. Make that your goal over all other goals. You may be graduating High School at or near the top of your class. You may be in the middle of a very dark place right now. You may have no idea what you want to do with the rest of your life, or you may possess a certainty that cannot be shaken. It doesn’t matter; everyone is standing wherever they are standing, and everyone has a next step in front of them…and everyone needs to hold God’s hand when they take it.
God bless our graduates; the North Heights family will always be here for you.
~ Matthew