His Thoughts

Okay.
So.
I have been suffering from this huge case of writer's block.
Chapter 7 is just the dumbest chapter in the whole world. I simply cannot write it.
And I know exactly what the problem is.... I'm just having trouble fixing it.
The problem is that I don't know what I want to say in it. And writing without a purpose is never ever a good thing. In order to say something to people, you have to have something that you want to say. That may or may not make sense to the rest of you, but at least I know what I mean. =)
And it is not that I haven't had this problem before... it's just that other times when this happened, I would just kind of write until I accidentally stumbled upon the message that I wanted to share.
But chapter 7?
I just kept blindly writing and rewriting, reading over each sentence, anticipating the moment when that tiny, hidden piece of wisdom that I feel every teen girl should know would pop out at me.
Unfortunately, it never did. lol.
So finally, I was like "Okay, Jasmine. Pick a lesson or some kind of theme, and weave it into your chapter."
So that is what I did.
And the theme that I chose was trust.
At the beginning of each chapter, I do like, a page or so of introductory thoughts, in an attempt to draw reader's minds a bit deeper than the actual plot of my story. lol. If something profound is going to be said by me, it will most likely be in the first page of a chapter.
And since I have finally written a beginning for chapter seven that I do not absolutely hate, I have chosen to share it here.
I don't know why.... because it is not even good. Like, you should read the beginning of chapter 2. now that is a chapter beginning that I feel okay about.
But, no, I am going to put the beginning of chapter 7 on here. lol. Seriously, do not expect profoundness, or you will be disappointed.
Also, if I happened to have a conversation with any one of you recently, in which we talked about one of us being arrested AGAIN for certain activities (which may or may not involve closets. lol.), and the other one of us having to pay for their bail AGAIN, then you should know that you totally had something to do with the inspiration of the beginning of chapter seven. =)
Anyways... the beginning of chapter 7:

Let’s play a game, shall we?

I like to call this game “If you found yourself in a jail cell at one in the morning, who would you call to bail you out?”

I know... it’s a lengthy name.  

But don’t be intimidated. Anyone can play!

It doesn’t matter if you are four years old or 99 years old.

Although, to be honest, I can’t really think of any circumstances in which either a four year old or a 99 year old would be arrested.

And as much fun as it would be to continue pondering that, I think it’s time for me to get back to the question that I really want you to think about.

If you had been arrested, and had the right to make one phone call, who would you call?

There are some things to consider here.

You want the person that you choose to have enough money to pay for your bail. That’s important.

But more importantly- perhaps most importantly- you want to know that the person you called would actually be willing to drag themselves out of bed to come get you.  You would want to know that whatever it is that connects the two of you runs a whole lot deeper than the pull of sleep.

Basically, you need to trust the other person.

Trust is kind of a funny thing.

It happens unexpectedly, I think. It begins without you even realizing it. It starts out as something small, and builds up over time- perhaps years and years. And then one day, you are stunned and almost frightened when you discover that you have unknowingly placed your trust in someone else. 

At least, that’s the way it worked for me.

And the person that I trusted was not one of the people that I would have said that I trusted. But when it came down to it, and I needed help, he was the one who came to mind.

He had never been anything but dependable and loyal.

Completely trust-worthy.

Trusting him was easy.

Do you know what is a whole lot harder than the trust that comes without you even realizing it?

Choosing to trust.

Deciding to put your faith in something or someone, even when you are unsure. Even when everything inside you is telling you that it’s not worth the risk. Even when it doesn’t make sense.

For a long time, I chose not to trust in what I could not see. 

The other thing about trust is that it can be destroyed. Very quickly. With no warning at all. 

It doesn't matter how many years it has had to accumulate. 

Once it's gone, it's gone. 

I learned that the hard way. 

Okay. 

Well. 

That is that. lol. 

I think part of the reason that I chose trust as the theme for this chapter is because it is such a big thing in my life right now. 

Just learning to trust, and to believe that God really does have a plan, and that it is better than anything I could ever dream up for myself. 

I started thinking about trust a couple weekends ago, while I was at Girls' Journey. 

And one morning, the session was about God's promises. And Cor (the speaker) talked about how we are sometimes very hard on ourselves. 

I know I am. 

I have just never really realized it until she talked about it. 

I am so used to calling myself names, and feeling disappointed in myself, and beating myself up, and telling myself that I am not even half as good as everyone else that I did not even really consider the fact that I don't have to do that to myself. 

It is just what I have always done. For as long as I can remember. Sitting there, in the chapel, listening, I could not even imagine what it would be like to live life without being dissatisfied with myself. 

And then we were all given rocks, and told to write the names that we call ourselves on the the rock, and throw it in the lake, a symbol of our choice to no longer believe the lies that Satan tells us about ourselves. 

Later that day, I heard girls talking about how they had just "tossed their rock in the lake". 

And I thought "Why was that so easy for them? And why can't it be that easy for me? What is wrong with me?". 

Because, you see, I still had my rock. 

It was given to me on saturday morning, and I still had it on Saturday night. 

My rock...  

Covered with the names that I have called myself for years. 

The names that I chose for myself. 

The names that seem so fitting for me. 

And once I used them once or twice, they stuck. 

There is an odd security in those names. 

I know them. I respond to them. 

They are so easy to believe. 

They are always there, in my mind, whispers that infect all my thoughts, and can cause me to doubt even the very best gifts that God has given to me. 

But I discovered something in my Bible that Saturday afternoon. 

God's thoughts? 

Are different than mine. 

It says so in Isaiah 55:8,9. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." 

If God's thoughts are different than mine, and my thoughts about myself are negative... then God's thoughts about me must be.... positive? 

And His thoughts are higher than my thoughts? 

Well, yeah. 

My thoughts hold no significance at all compared to the thoughts of God. 

And time and time again in the Bible, God makes it clear that his people are valuable to Him. That they are loved, and that they belong, and that He has chosen them, and that they are valuable. 

In fact, God believes that we are so valuable that we were worth dying for. 

So you would think that this would be enough to convince me to just throw the dumb rock in the lake already, right? 

But no. 

I am more complicated than that. lol. 

See, the thing about throwing the rock in the lake was this: as soon as I got rid of it, I was saying that I was willing to stop calling myself by all those names. That I WOULD stop calling myself by all those names. 

And I just was not sure if I could do that. 

Like I said, those names are so familiar to me. They are what I am comfortable with, and what I respond to all the time. 

To exchange those names for others seemed almost impossible. 

I couldn't imagine the inside of my head not being filled with insults directed at myself. 

I couldn't imagine responding to "Loved" and "Chosen" and "Beautiful" and "Valuable" instead of "Failure" and "Ugly" and "Worthless" and "Invisible". 

So I kept the rock. 

Until Sunday afternoon, when I was all packed up and ready to leave. That rock had been on my mind ever since it was given to me, and suddenly, I decided that it was time to do what I knew God was asking me to do, even if it seemed like more than I could do on my own. 

So my rock and I walked down to the lake, and I threw it as far away as I could. (Which was not actually very far, because my arm is stupid that way. lol.)

Wow. 

That was a lot of words for a relatively small happening. lol. 

But throwing the rock in the lake was when I realized how necessary trust is. 

Because I still want to call myself by the old names, because for some dumb reason, I still believe that they describe me perfectly. 

But God has said that His thoughts are not my thoughts. His thoughts go waaaaaaaaaaaaay above and beyond mine. 

I just need to believe that. 

Even if I don't understand why or how. 

I need to believe that God views me entirely differently than I view myself. 

So yeah.... trust. 

It's a big thing right now. =)