Cheyann Cena: Trusting In God

The Narwhal News Staff welcomes opinion pieces from students in Grades 5-8. We reserve the right to edit for spacing and content.

NOTE: This essay contains passages about the author's pain and worry about what the future may hold. Although it has a hopeful theme throughout, it might bring up strong feelings you have about the events of the past year. Please reach out if you feel like you or a friend needs to speak to an adult: srcsawellnesscenter.weebly.com

CA Suicide Prevention Hotline: 800-273-8255 (24/7 in English and Spanish).

It’s a bright room, sparkling chandeliers are hanging above me, making me shield my eyes from the brightness. I stare at the bland breakfast laid out in front of me stacked with stale toast, plain muffins, and a glass of watered-down orange juice. My stomach growls with hunger, but I have no desire to eat. I’m on a family vacation for the summer and we’re staying at a beautiful hotel, but they have terrible food. It’s 54 degrees in the hotel and the heater is still blasting. My mom gasps as she reads an email from the school district. I cover my ears with my chilled hands, dreading to hear what she reads, but I already know what it says just by the look on her face…we're starting school with distance learning in the fall.

------

I’ll never forget the day I heard the dreadful news on school starting as distance learning in the fall. I was looking forward to being on the school campus for my last year. As a 6th grader I’ve always looked up to the big 8th graders grinning and saying to myself, “That's going to be me one day”. Well now I’m here and I can’t encourage the younger kids that age doesn’t define who you really are. That they're just as good as the older kids. Not one age group is better or worse than the other ones. I wanted to be on campus for another year on the leadership team, putting on fundraisers, planning dances and all.

------

Starting school in the fall with distance learning has been really hard on me emotionally. Not being able to hug my friends, teachers, and classmates has been difficult. Seeing them on zoom is not the same as seeing them in person, yet seeing them in person and knowing you can’t give that person a hug or a high five…I just can’t explain. There have been seasons where I’ll break down and cry from missing everybody. It might be from hormones, though. I imagined myself going on the 8th grade trip to Ashland. I saw myself in the bus with all of the 8th graders talking loudly from all of the excitement. I could see students enter the hotel and answer phone calls from parents letting them know they had arrived at the hotel safely. I could see girls squealing with joy as they found out they were in the same hotel room as their friends. I saw myself in a green and white Victorian floral swimsuit going night swimming with my classmates. I saw us even getting in trouble, because we weren't even supposed to go night swimming. I saw myself going to a Shakespeare play on that trip, and picking out little knick-knacks from the festival. I’m going to miss out on a lot this year.

------

I imagine...

...when December comes around I might be sitting on the couch in my trailer reading a really good romance book, sucked into my own world of imagination while I inhale the sweet smell of sugar cookies baking in the oven. My mom will jump up from the table and scurry across the trailer to her phone to read a text message from my dad. The look of agony on her face will betray her. She’ll look up at me and shake her head. I’ll skootch myself into the corner of the couch and hug my knees rocking myself back and forth breathing heavily. My mom will come and sit next to me. She’ll whisper, “School is cancelled for the rest of the year.” My heart will feel like it just got stabbed by a dull blade. I’ll squeeze my eyes shut hoping this is just a dream, shaking my head violently denying those words. My mom will place a hand on my knee bringing me back to reality. It’s then that I’ll realize that I have to make a choice.

------

I can stay in this painfully dark place of hopelessness and loss, and dwell on everything I’ll be missing out on. Or, I can choose to believe that God is still in control. I’ve realized that I can’t put my hope in going back to school because I may never go back to school this year, and I can’t worry and focus on the future because I'll miss the present. When I realized that if I put my hope in Jesus (the one that has a perfect plan for my life) I won’t ever have to be stressed or worried again. Who should I put my hope in? Who cares enough for me that they would order the days of my life? Who has an amazing plan for me? Who takes all the stress and pain away from me when I place my hope in them? Jesus does. There is a Bible verse that I think really applies to my life: “For I know the plans that I have for you says the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11. This verse really shows me that no matter what the future holds, if I keep my eyes on Jesus and the promise that He has for my life, I can live in peace and have hope for the future under any circumstance.