In High School Chapel, Mr. Pettit, Academic Dean of English, spoke about the 3rd statement of Madison Christian School’s Portrait of a Graduate: “Genuinely delights in pursuing wisdom and virtue as the end of true education.”
To expand on “pursuing wisdom,” Mr. Pettit invited four seniors to share about someone wise in their lives and what they've learned from that person. “It was really powerful and made an impact on the students,” said Mrs. Miller, Dean of Academics / High School Principal. Here is an overview of what they shared:
A person that I admire and find to be very wise is [MCS Faculty] Mr. Slonaker. An idea that he has ingrained and has continued to repeat over and over is, “Not everything that shines is gold”. His godly example of Christian living, and his approach to always diving deeply into what things truly are based upon, is something I admire and respect. His repetitive phrase, “Find out what it truly means and what ideologies are behind it. Does it truly have a biblical resemblance?” is something I have taken as a piece of wisdom from him.
Someone in my life who exemplifies wisdom is my youth pastor. He wants to live his life in a way where he can think of a verse in the Bible and bring it back to another verse. When you see someone with the fire of God in them like he has, it encourages you to be the same and want to live for God even more. The little things in life make a big difference. It all starts when you're young, so make the most of the things that don't seem important now. It will come back and be something that you didn't realize would be important, and it may change your life like it did mine.
I would easily call my mom someone wise in my life. Ever since I was little, she’s bestowed endless teachings that I’ve applied to my life to this day. Something she’s instilled in me is that in any type of relationship, you must be willing to make changes for the other person. At times, our simple differences may conflict with each other, but what’s important is how each party caters to those differences. Each party should be willing to change and not be stuck in their stubbornness, because sometimes that is what blocks us from having good relationships that last.
My mom and dad are both wise in different ways. My dad will always say to work smarter and not harder. Say that he is building a dog house for our many dogs. If he runs into a problem, he doesn’t keep retrying the same thing to see if he can make it work, but he tries a different way that ends up working better. One thing I can take away from my dad is that there are always multiple ways to do something.
My mom always tells me to never settle for anything less, meaning that if you can achieve more, then earn that. Strive to want the best for yourself and do your best at everything you participate in. This applies to your relationships, friendships, different opportunities presented to you, etc. In everything you do, do your best and you’ll do great things in life.