Each fall students across the country submit tens of applications to colleges and universities. The ones who work so hard on each essay, study extra hours for standardized tests and join extra curricular activities feel the burden most of all. They feel as if a piece of themselves is going out with each application and that if they aren't accepted that it is they who are being rejected and not just their qualifications. This broke my heart a bit because I had been through this process in the last couple of years when I applied to graduate school for my doctorate in Theology or Religious Studies. I wanted these students to see that they were made beautifully in God's image and that they were not just a test score or essay. The sermon I gave in chapel reflected that. Here it is below.
Upper School Chapel
This year colleges and universities across the country will receive a record number of applications. One top tier school received over 37,00 applications. However, the reality is that only that they can accept only 7% to their freshmen class. I don’t have to tell you that the competition is fierce, that the pressure to achieve is nearly overwhelming and that in an instant your hopes can be dashed and your self-confidence shaken.
I bring this up because I have seen the stress on many of your faces. It’s the same look that every high school student will wear at some point in their career here. I’ve seen you working hard to juggle applying to a number of schools while staying focused on your classes and extra curricular activities.
The message I want to deliver this morning is simple. You are more than a college application. You are not a test score or an essay. You are not a resume or recommendation letter.
In the spring of 2009 I began the process of applying to graduate schools in the hopes of earning my doctorate in theology or religious studies. I believed that becoming a professor would have been the greatest accomplishment of my life. I applied to Boston College as my first choice and Florida State (my alma mater) as my backup. I flew to Boston in the dead of winter for my campus visit, met every professor and tried to make the best first impression I could. I visited FSU and did the same thing. I came home confident that I would be accepted somewhere. I even prayed to God that he would give me this dream. And then I waited. I waited for what seemed like an eternity.
When I got the rejection letters I was disheartened and dumbfounded. Had they not liked me? Was I not good enough for them? Why had God not given me this? After some soul searching and prayer I did two things.
1. I threw away the 30 year plan that I had written for my life which outlined everything that I would accomplish and everywhere I would go. I decided to let the God of surprises, the God who guides and loves, who knows what is best for me into what I was doing. I opened myself open to being challenged and taken in directions I could never have imagined.
2. I put the letters on the fridge. My wife asked “why?” I told her that those letters were just one view about me from people I barely knew, people who barely knew me. I wasn’t going to let them define who I was.
I stand before you today convinced I did the right thing. I let God lead me to my vocation, to this school, to this moment with all of you. And I have never been happier.
So to all of you in the thick of college apps, or who will be one day soon, I encourage you to look closely at who you are, someone wonderfully made in the image of God, not a test score, not an essay. You.
End Sermon.
This world will always try to define us by something other than our true identity. If I had to say what my identity was I would say husband, father, son and brother. But the first way I would identify myself is "Child of God". That is who made me. That is who sustains me.
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