My grad speech - FINALLY

To our beloved Academy administrator: Judge Erasmo SP Cruz, to our dear Principal: Maam Bellla Magat, to the Members of the CEMI Board, to our dear pastor: Rev. Joyce Nickowski, to our ever supportive parents, to our most valued teachers, fellow students, distinguished guest: a warm and pleasant afternoon to all of you.

Let me begin by saying that I am honored to be addressing you today as a graduating student of C.C.E.M.I. Academy even so, for the last time. A few moments ago, we have received our diplomas and have become the 2009 graduates of this Academy. I guess that after all the pressures of projects, quizzes, exams, assignments, and numerous restrictions, most of us were looking forward to this moment – when the studying is done, the diploma is in your hand, and, finally, you are on your own, and yet a deeper sense of need to be decisive, my friends, we must, as many, if not all of us, will move on to a new chapter in our life as College and or University students.

But now, classmates, I want you to look around and remember this moment. Look at your comrades and your teachers because from now on life will scatter us around the world, and most of us will meet only after four or five years. Recall the best moments of studying that we shared. Our first lessons in June, when we were still fresh from two months of vacation and full of summer stories that our teachers had difficulties silencing us up to start the lessons. Remember our informal chats during recess, full of laughter and jokes. Recall your very best friends with whom you shared heart aches and life’s deepest problems. Remember the pranks you played on the younger students because you realized that you’re time has come and no longer a push around in the school. Remember your favorite teachers who helped you find meaning and direction in your life. Remember everything and cherish them in your memory.

We are now standing in the bend in the road, the threshold of our teenage life. It can be said that we are free to go our own way, and it will be absolutely different for everyone. Some of us will be nurses, engineers, or lawyers. Some of us will pursue Doctorate degrees. Others will require time to think and will work right after graduation. Some of us might even go abroad. But however different and winding our paths may be, we are all graduates of one Academy. It has given us the opportunity to gain exquisite Christian education, balance our personal priorities, and freedom is bestowed upon us to choose the path we must take. With the wisdom and friends we gained from our alma mater, C.C.E.M.I. Academy, we will overcome any obstacle. The main thing is to search hard for the will of God in your life. Have persistence and faith. Remember that it is never found lying in the street, it should be quested. Dr. Myles Munroe said, “An eagle that doesn’t fly cannot fulfill its purpose. Likewise, your life will lack purpose and focus until you discover your wings. This discovery will require both wisdom and courage because the thrill of flying always begins with the fear of falling.” Take the plunge and search for God’s purpose in your life. Even if at times you’ll feel that all seems lost, continue no matter what.

To the students we shall soon leave behind, study hard because your education will be your contribution to the future. It cannot be stolen, nor can it be extinct. Do your very best to achieve your dreams. Perhaps now society may look down on you as one at the bottom of the barrel – a young person with no salt and can only make mischief. You might be the type of student to be the first to complain when the teacher gives new lessons, lots of seat works and assignments. But, like all the great men and women in history, you have to take the first step. When you have taken that crucial step, then you can start to change. Turn to God for guidance and wisdom. Remember that studying is always a process. Intelligence is brought about by hard work and that genius can never explain how it does it. It would not be genius if it could.

To all the people who have supported us - namely, our parents, teachers, pastors, friends, and schoolmates – we have put you in the rhapsody of our everyday thoughts. We hope that our feelings of appreciation reach you. We’ll always and truly be thankful to you. Wherever you are, we’ll always be happy that you exist and gave us a helping hand.

Thank you, teachers, for your persistence in teaching us; for always reprimanding us, because it just shows that you are concerned about each of us; for the deductions, because it shows that we still have room for improvement; for setting restrictions and limitations, because you’re teaching us the way to live a Godly life; and for sharing with us your life stories, because you have shown us where we should not venture to go.

Thank you, parents, for burning the midnight oil with us when we needed help in our exams and projects; for guiding us in the way we thought was wrong but, in the end, proved to be the right way; for rebuking our wrongs; for picking us up whenever we fell; for always being patient with our complaints even when you’re exhausted from work; for giving us our baon everyday when you yourselves don’t have enough money to spend; for sacrificing and exhausting all your resources just to give us what we truly need, and at times, even our wants; for working extra-hard for us; and for still loving us even when we openly reject you. For all of those and more, thank you.

Thank you, pastors, for embedding in us the precious truths of God, for making us realize the need for God in our life, and for letting us experience the reality of God. Truly, we will treat your teachings as our prized possessions to guide us even as we go through our college life.

Thank you, friends and schoolmates, for lending a helping hand and a shoulder to cry on whenever we needed it.

But, most of all, thank you very much to our great God and Father, for sustaining us through the four years of high school life and the challenges we faced along the way. He has stayed with us through thick and thin, strengthened us when we were weak, and mended our hearts whenever they broke.

We needed all the help we can get and you all have freely given it to us. You were never lacking. Undeniably, without God and the aforesaid people, we would never have made it. Certainly, all the thank you’s would never be enough to express our gratitude. We hope that when we enter the next stage of our lives, you will still be there to guide and help us.

Classmates, we are almost at the end of our high school journey. When this event finally ends and we are at our respective homes, we are free to choose where we will go. We will be free to make our own choices. We will be able to see the world more vividly, in the eyes of a college freshman. We will be able to experience life in its fullness. I pray that you will continue to live a life for God. I hope to hear about you doing well in the years to come, that you are one of the most successful entrepreneurs, engineers, or nurses in the country or abroad. And I hope to God, someone may respond to God’s special calling, and be in the fulltime ministry, as a pastor, or even a missionary to the faraway land of Timbuktu.

May God be with us, in all our endeavors. God bless everyone of us. Thank you and good afternoon.

To God be all the glory.