Noticed

Today was the last official day of class, but it also still means we have a week of finals left. I will personally be extremely thankful for the break from school for a little while. However, I wanted to reflect back on some things about my creative writing class this semester. I started out in that class excited because, well, it's creative writing (what's not to be excited about?)! I soon realized how not excited I was because every single day I sat down in that class I heard conversations around me that were negative towards God. While I wasn't excited or thoroughly interested in going to that class, God still held me there. Why? Because he had a plan for me there. To be honest, I was kind of scared but I thought "cool, I get to change someone's life." I'm not really sure that was the best thinking because now that I look at it, I don't think I did change anyone's life. If there was any life-changing events that occurred in that classroom, it was because of Him, not me.

I'm writing about this because today I realized that people in my class are really starting to know me. My teacher had volunteers read their monologues in class, and it was like pulling teeth for people to get up and read. We had a couple of guys read their monologues, and the teacher asked for girl volunteers. Nobody raised their hand or motioned the desire to read at all. That's when I heard someone say "How about Jenna" behind me and another "Yeah, let's hear Jenna's monologue." I could feel their eyes on me, but they were eager to hear what I had written. For lack of confidence in my monologue piece, I politely refused, but I was so extremely flattered that my classmates (those hopeless peers of mine) wanted to hear what I had to say through my words on a page.

I prayed about that class everyday, hoping God might've sent me there for change. For the longest time, I thought that absolutely nothing had changed. Things had remained stagnant, and the class was just as hopeless as ever. But you know, God did put me there. It wasn't a change I could see right away, but it turns out the change was in me. I slowly broke open my boundaries by sharing my writing in that class this semester. God gave me strength, and so the things I wrote became effortlessly filled with hope. And my teacher recognized it when she selected me to read at a campus student reading. God had me expose my writing, yet again, to a larger audience. So, the change happened when I relied on God to write instead of myself, and I can only pray that that hope I have expressed is why they requested me to read today. I won't have regrets, but if I did have one it would be not standing up in front of those classmates one more time.

He notices their need.