~Graduation 2019~
This year we had three graduates in our family! Ethan graduated from high school, Aidan graduated from 8th grade, and Brandan graduated from Kindergarten. We had a wonderful time celebrating with our new church family and AL friends!
Mom wrote this special message for Ethan on his graduation day:
Welcome. Thank you so much for joining us as we celebrate Ethan’s high school
graduation. If you had told me a couple of years ago that we would be holding
Ethan’s graduation party in the deep South, 1200 miles from all of our family and
the state we’ve always called home, I wouldn’t have believed you. Yet here we
are. In one of Ethan’s college applications he was asked to write an essay on his
favorite word. Ethan chose to write about God’s “sovereign serendipity,”
acknowledging that God has used all of the circumstances in his life, even the
challenging ones, to work together for his ultimate good. Our family has seen
countless demonstrations of God’s faithfulness through the transitions of this past
year. What never ceases to amaze me is that God so quickly blessed us with a
church who prayed for our family members by name before meeting us and
welcomed and loved us like family. In the absence of most of our New Hampshire
family and friends, we are especially grateful that you are here to congratulate
and encourage Ethan as he enters this new chapter of his life and educational
journey.
Ethan, as your mom and homeschool teacher for the past 12 years, I’d like to give
a recap of your accomplishments, recognize your achievements, and offer you
some final words of exhortation. As valedictorian of your class, YOU should
probably be up here giving this speech, but I’m going to give you a pass.
Ethan has been blessed with a wide variety of talents, and he has never allowed a
lack of formal training to hinder him in pursuing his interests. Ethan has spent the
past few years teaching himself guitar through online lessons and has spent more
evenings than I can count, developing his drawing skills and working on portraits
to give as gifts to his family and friends. (Please take a few minutes to look
through Ethan’s art portfolio, which we have displayed on the table inside.)
Ethan’s artistic talents were put to good use in the six years he spent on a
Destination Imagination team. Siobhan and Ethan’s team placed first in their NH
regional and state tournaments and moved on to the Global tournament in
Tennessee. Knoxville, TN, felt like the far reaches of the earth, and the kids
returned to New England full of bizarre stories about Southerners who talked up a
storm with the craziest accent and treated you like a long lost cousin, even when
you beat them in their own tournament!
One of the opportunities Ethan was most excited about down here in Alabama
was joining a REAL swim team. Before last summer, Ethan had enjoyed a couple
of seasons of low-key competitive swimming at our local pools in New Hampshire.
Last summer, the White family invited him to try out for the Athens Gator’s Team.
He joined with less experience than most of the other swimmers his age, but he
persevered and, at the end of the season, was recognized as the most improved
swimmer in his age category. No sooner did swim team come to a close than
Ethan asked me to set him up with a training program for the Rocket City
Marathon. Since running was “my thing,” I was a little reluctant to share this
hobby and figured he’d probably lose interest as the miles added up. Ethan
proved me wrong, and the months we spent waking up before dawn to run with
flashlights, dodge armadillos, and brave rainstorms and blistering heat became a
memory I will always treasure. I couldn’t have been prouder when Ethan crossed
the finish line.
To celebrate his 26.2 mile achievement, I gave Ethan this shirt. It lists the 6 stages
of marathon running , which I’ll read to you.
Number 1. Let’s Do This! 2. Why Am I doing this? 3. Am I dead? 4. I wish I were
dead. 5. I’m dead. 6. Can’t wait to RACE AGAIN.
I love how the Bible uses running as a metaphor for the Christian life. 1
Corinthians 9:24 says, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but
only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.”
In Hebrews 12:1 1 we read, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great
cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so
easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”
And in Philippians 3:13-14, Paul writes, “Brothers and sisters, I do not consider
myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind
and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for
which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
Ethan, during your high school journey, you’ve hit each of these stages of race
training When you embarked on a rigorous classical education and were handed
your first pile of new books, you probably said to yourself, “Let’s Do This!” Then
the monotony set in and challenges arrived, not the least of which was putting
putting your Junior Year of high school on hold for a few months to help your
family of 10 prepare and pack our home for a 1200 mile move. I’m sure there
were many times when you wondered, “Why am I doing this?” Yet you were the
first to volunteer for projects and never complained when you were asked to
paint walls around your sleeping brothers and sisters at night with a flashlight,
clean our house again and again for showings, help care for so many younger
siblings with the stomach bug, and load and unload our moving truck. I don’t
know about you, but there were a few times during our move when I was
tempted to wish I were dead (or at least could just sleep until it was all over).
Then as your “reward” for helping your family with a monumental move, you got
to spend most of last summer catching up on your schoolwork. As of this past
week, you have finished 10 years of Latin, as well as Logic and Rhetoric with
Excellence. You’ve studied more than 170 books in your Omnibus course, and
today you are graduating Summa Cum Laude. Now you are planning to study
biology at UAH’s Honors College and are gearing up to “race again!”
Ethan, my charge to you as your mom and teacher (and retired running partner) is
from Colossians 3:23-24 which reads, “ Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the
Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord ayou will receive the
inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” Those days in your
life when you receive awards, celebrate a graduation, or cross a finish line are few
and far between, and you will need a fresh supply of God’s grace each morning to
face the hard work and challenges that come with adult responsibilities. Keep
trusting in your faithful God who has written each of your days in His book, has
promised to help and uphold you, and who will renew your strength as you rely
on Him.
As I was thinking about what I might share with you today, Ethan, one of my
favorite stories came to mind. It is the legend of an artist who worked on one of
the great cathedrals. Before sharing the legend, the writer made 4 interesting
observations about the builders of the great cathedrals which are worth
mentioning.
1.) First, no one can say who built the great cathedrals – we have no record of
their names.
2.) Second,these builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see
finished.
3.) Third, they made great sacrifices and expected no credit.
4.)Fourth, the passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of
God saw everything.
This legend told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being
built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was
puzzled and asked the man, “Why are you spending so much time carving that
bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof, No one will ever see it.” And the
workman replied, “Because God sees.”
When Ethan was asked which book out of the hundreds he has read for school
most impacted him, he said that it was The Confessions of St. Augustine. I would
like to present you with your own copy of this book and leave you with a simple
quote from St. Augustine.
Augustine wrote, “You aspire to great things? Begin with little ones.” Ethan you
have been faithful in the small things, and my prayer for you is that God will equip
you with everything good that you may continue to do his will [in the bigger
things of life], working in you that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus
Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.
Grandma Z was able to fly down from NH to be here for the graduation. It was so special to have her celebrate with us!
Congratulations, Ethan! I am so proud of you and can't wait to go to UAH with you this fall.
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