{"id":5025,"date":"2025-11-06T08:00:37","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T13:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/studentlife\/?p=5025"},"modified":"2025-11-06T08:31:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T13:31:13","slug":"identity-in-christ-academic-struggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/studentlife\/2025\/11\/06\/identity-in-christ-academic-struggles\/","title":{"rendered":"When Excellence Isn\u2019t Enough: Finding Your Identity in Christ Through Academic Struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Believing I Had It All Together<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

I remember receiving\u00a0many\u00a0Cedarville\u00a0advertisements\u00a0during high school. Though\u00a0each\u00a0one\u00a0was different, they all echoed the same\u00a0<\/span>theme:\u00a0<\/span>transforming\u00a0students\u00a0through their\u00a0integrity in conduct and excellence in effort for the\u00a0Word of God and the\u00a0Testimony of Jesus Christ.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/h2>\n

Although I admired Cedarville for its commitment to helping students grow spiritually, I\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0think I needed Cedarville\u2019s help in my walk with the Lord. In my mind, I was already the ideal Christian: I read my Bible every day, went to church three times a week, and volunteered to help with church events. When I\u00a0arrived\u00a0at\u00a0Cedarville, my main concern was academics, not spiritual growth. But throughout my\u00a0freshman\u00a0year, God repeatedly used that very focus\u00a0\u2014\u00a0academics\u00a0\u2014\u00a0to\u00a0expose sin in my life.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When I arrived on campus to begin my\u00a0<\/span>1000 Days, I was a little nervous. I declared a double major in\u00a0<\/span>keyboard pedagogy<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>professional writing and information design<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>\u2014<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>two unrelated fields<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u2014<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>which meant I would face a difficult\u00a0course\u00a0load and hours of studying. Part of me wondered if I could handle it, but the other part of me was confident.\u00a0I\u00a0had\u00a0finished high school with straight As\u00a0and several scholarships.\u00a0I was a great student.\u00a0I could expect to continue excelling academically.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Measuring My Worth by Achievement<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

During the\u00a0<\/span>Getting Started program<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>Dr. White<\/span><\/a>\u00a0told the\u00a0freshman\u00a0class that many college students go through an identity crisis when they are no longer the best at their academic discipline or sport like they were in high school. He encouraged us to find our identity in Christ alone, not\u00a0in\u00a0our GPA or the number of trophies in our dorm room.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What he said bothered me. Sure, I knew tha<\/span>t God had created everyone in His image, which makes each of us special.\u00a0And I was satisfied with that identity<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u2014<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>as long as\u00a0a perfect GPA came with it.\u00a0To me, my grades proved that God loved me and considered me special; why else did I excel when others\u00a0didn\u2019t? And really, school came so easily that\u00a0I often forgot\u00a0that God had given me\u00a0all my academic abilities.\u00a0Although I prayed about homework and thanked God when I received good grades, I still clung to my own\u00a0intelligence. I was still the one in control of my excellence.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ultimately, I\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0worried about what Dr. White said. I thought his advice was for other people. Other people would struggle with school, but\u00a0I\u00a0would\u00a0continue to be the best.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Then\u00a0classes started.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Watching My Confidence Crumble<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

Some of my classes came as naturally to me as my high school classes\u00a0had.\u00a0I completed assignments well ahead of deadlines and\u00a0made\u00a0high A<\/span>\u2019<\/span>s.\u00a0I loved learning about music and writing (especially sentence structure in grammar class!), and I was amazed at how much I learned so quickly.\u00a0However, I soon began to struggle with my assignments.\u00a0A\u00a0semester<\/span>–<\/span>long\u00a0group project proved to be completely out of my control:\u00a0My classmates\u00a0frequently\u00a0changed our meeting times at the last minute and wasted time when we met.\u00a0In Music Theory, I spent hours trying to label chords I\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0understand.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My most daunting class was\u00a0Aural Skills, ear training for music majors.\u00a0I found it\u00a0nearly impossible\u00a0to\u00a0identify\u00a0the melodies and chords\u00a0I heard.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Some people have naturally gifted ears that can easily decipher the pitch of the sounds they hear.\u00a0I quickly realized that I was not one of those people and needed to work hard to do well in\u00a0the class. Yet no matter how hard I tried, it seemed like I could never\u00a0hear what other students heard.\u00a0I\u00a0spent more time practicing than many of my classmates did, yet I stayed behind.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For the first time in my life, I was no longer<\/span>\u00a0the\u00a0star student. Even when I\u00a0made\u00a0good grades, I despaired that I worked harder to get them than many of my peers did. I\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0in control of my grades anymore, nor was I special because of my test scores. So many\u00a0other students were better\u00a0than me.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I tried to reassure myself of what Dr. White said at the beginning of the semester:\u00a0We\u00a0are\u00a0all equal because we are created in the image of God.\u00a0As I reminded myself of that truth, God convicted me.\u00a0For years, by thinking that my strengths defined me, I both stole credit for my achievements away from God and thought that I was more valuable than others.\u00a0I finally had to believe what the Bible says about identity because I could no longer cling to my academic merit as\u00a0a\u00a0proof of\u00a0my\u00a0value.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Learning\u00a0To Surrender My Success<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

I came to Cedarville to learn how to teach piano and write professionally. Although I\u00a0learned more than I could have imagined\u00a0from my two majors, the most important thing<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>I learned\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0come from a professor or a textbook\u00a0but from God Himself.\u00a0A\u00a0high<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>class\u00a0ranking\u00a0does not make me special, nor does a low one make me inferior.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One of my favorite quotes is from missionary Corrie\u00a0Ten Boom: \u201cEvery experience God gives\u00a0us,\u00a0every person he puts into our lives is the perfect preparation for a future only He can see.\u201d God knew that I needed to find my identity in Him, and He used academic struggles to reveal that to me\u00a0and prepare me to better serve Him.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/h2>\n

Trust God\u00a0With Your Academic\u00a0Journey<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

Maybe you\u00a0will be the exceptional student who gets straight\u00a0As\u00a0by just barely cracking open a book.\u00a0Maybe you\u00a0will struggle to understand your coursework\u00a0or\u00a0meet deadlines. Regardless of what your academic performance looks like, remember\u00a0to\u00a0credit God for your victories and trust that God uses your struggles to mold you into the\u00a0Christian\u00a0He wants you to be.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s easy to measure your worth by grades or achievements \u2014 until those things begin to crumble. One Cedarville student discovered that even in the midst of academic struggles, God was teaching her a deeper lesson: her identity isn\u2019t defined by performance, but by Christ alone.","protected":false},"author":167,"featured_media":5033,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[118,43,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-life","category-testimony","category-well-being"],"yoast_head":"\nWhen Excellence Isn\u2019t Enough: Finding Your Identity in Christ Through Academic Struggles - Student Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When excellence isn\u2019t enough, where do you find your worth? 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