*POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter references suicide indirectly, but I thought it was worth mentioning.*

The church doesn't look like a normal church. There is no steeple like the church I used to go to. It's hidden behind a few other buildings and the tan, tin siding makes it stick out among the old brick. As we get closer, I see that the outside is well taken care of with flowers planted in mulch and a few little lights that brighten up the walkway.

From out here, I can hear music playing loudly and wonder if we're at the right place. Layla looks back and smiles at me as she pushes through the front glass doors. I follow closely behind her.

People are all over the place. Many of them are in the small common room we enter through, just talking, grabbing drinks from a table that holds a punch bowl and snack foods from what I can see. Layla twirls around to face me.

"Want to grab some snacks before we go in?" She asks with hopeful eyes.

"This isn't it?" I look around the small room and the people that are in here. In my experience, youth groups are small and you sit in a small room and talk and play some games. I thought this was the youth group.

Layla chuckles as she hands me a cup of punch and a small plate to put a few snacks on. "What were you expecting?"

I shrug my shoulders. "Back home, youth groups aren't this big, I guess."

"This isn't even the half of it. I think you're going to like it." We walk towards another door that has a duplicate on the same wall on the other side of the room. Inside, I find where the music is coming from. There's a small stage up front with a blue light shining on it. A projector hangs from the ceiling, projecting the lyrics to the song on it. We enter by the seats, but when I look around, there are even more seats that surround the stage in a half circle.

The seats elevate upwards like they would in a movie theater, and they are already getting close to being packed. We find seats near the middle and settle down into them. Layla begins to look around, in search for someone she knows maybe.

"Do you come to these things alone?" I ask her.

"I'm actually trying to find my friend that goes here. You might remember her from lunch. Her name is Madison, the girl with the really curly hair?"

I nod my head. "Oh yeah, I do. Is that her?" I point towards a girl walking in front of the stage in search for a seat. Her dark brown skin and big, curly hair sparks a memory of seeing her at lunch. For Layla's sake, I shout her name and she looks our way.

Layla laughs and waves her hand so Madison will see her. Once she does, Madison heads our way. I move my legs so she can squeeze past me and sit on the other side of Layla.

"I'm glad you came!" Layla exclaims as she hugs Madison.

"Me too. I missed last weeks because of that recital, so I'm glad to be back."

"Oh," Layla wraps her fingers around my arm as she talks. "This is Jonah from school."

I try not to focus on her hand and look over at Madison with a small smile. "Hey."

"Hey," she says, eyebrows furrowed. She peeks at Layla with a suggestive look and Layla lets go of my arm push her friend. They start laughing and I take that as my cue to do something else. I pull out my phone and see a few texts from Jordan.

From: Loser
6:15 PM
so how's church? Haha

To: Loser
6:30 PM
good so far. About a thousand times bigger than the ones at home.

From: Loser
6:30 PM
I figured. Ttyl Moose just peed on my floor

I laugh out loud at that one and Layla glances over at me.

"Sorry, I was just catching up with Madison. I didn't mean to leave you alone," she apologizes. The look on her face tells me she actually feels guilty about it.

"No, you're fine. Jordan just texted me that Moose peed on her floor." She laughs too, and we fall into a conversation about the day, making sure to tell Madison the details.

The lights suddenly dim and the music gets louder. A guy that looks to be in his mid-20s walks out into the middle of the stage and greets the whole room.

"Hey, guys! Let's get tonight started with a few songs, and then we'll jump right into it."

I'm hesitant to stand up when Layla pulls me up with her, unconvinced that I'll even like the music. But as it starts to play, it proves to be upbeat and, well, good. Never in my life did I think I'd like Christian music. Maybe that's because my mom used to listen to the classic stuff by gospel groups, and then never caught my attention.

But this. This is good.

I find myself reading the lyrics as Layla sings them beside me. The whole room is like a party, singing and swaying with the song. The colored lights make me feel like I'm a concert.

"...between a world of chaos and that quiet voice inside. And my phone keeps telling me there are a million ways to find where my hope is, but it's a lie..."

I find myself relating to the song more than I thought I would.

After a few more songs, the lights on the stage go back to normal and I worry that I'm about to be bored with some long sermon on why we need to believe in God or whatever.

As soon as that same guy walks back out on stage with a Bible that looks like it has been flipped through a few too many times and a random plastic bag, I'm caught off guard.

"That is Leo, by the way. He's the youth minister here," Layla whispers next to me.

"Good evening, guys. How is everyone?" As he asks this, he takes a seat on the edge of the stage. I get the feeling that this is a casual thing more than anything. Leo smiles at the loud response of the crowd. "Great, great. Now, I've got some really important things to talk to you about.

"Little things. Little things matter so much, don't you think? From the hinges that help open a door to the plastic bag that you carry your groceries with. Normally you would consider those to be insignificant to you. You could do without the plastic bag, right? Just carry those groceries in your arms. No big deal. But..." He takes the plastic bag he had carried out and shakes it out. "what if this plastic bag actually had more meaning than it led on? What if we used it in a different manner?"

I furrow my eyebrows, not taking my eyes off of this dude. I'm confused, and I look at Layla to see that she isn't exactly following what he's saying, either. Then out of nowhere, Leo takes the bag and puts it on his head. He holds it tightly around his neck. Layla sits forward in her seat and I can practically see her nerves bursting.

About 20 seconds later, he takes it off. A mischievous smile forms on his face and he stands up, heading to the small podium in the middle of the stage.

"If you do something like that with something as insignificant as a plastic bag, it suddenly becomes significant." He looks around and must see the worried looks on people's faces. "Don't worry guys, I cut holes in the bag.

"My point is, small things can be the most significant. Baby Jesus? He was small, tiny. Yet He was a king already. A baby who seemed insignificant was actually the most significant person of that time. He already had weight on His shoulders. The things that Jesus did throughout His life were anything but insignificant. Even when given or seeing proof, people did not believe He was the Messiah. And when He laid His life down for each of us in this room, He did not think of those people and their opinions. He thought of us, the people who He would be saving from their own sins.

"Let's talk about those unimportant things that He also died for. Words. Sure, those are pretty important, but only when used correctly. They have to be in a certain order to make sense." Leo puts both hands on each side of the podium as he stresses his point. "To some people, it only takes one small word to cause them to have a good day. They'll smile when thinking back to the moment they heard it. Yet it also only takes one word to cause someone to lose hope, have an awful day, and so on. It matters what we say. It matters what we do, for that matter. Jesus made it clear, especially in the books of Matthew and many others that we are to be kind to one another. Love each other like we would a best friend or a family member. We are to treat people like they are significant. I want you to feel like you are significant. Because in Jesus' eyes, you are." He opens the Bible on his podium and uses a remote to make the screen above him to display a verse.

I find myself listening more closely to his words than I had intended, catching things that I've never heard before. And suddenly, my mind begins to spin with what the world has told me and what I'm hearing now. Now it's up to me - like Layla has said.

It depends on me, now.

*

When it's all over, Layla and I walk out while she and Madison say their goodbyes.

"It was cool seeing you here, Jonah." Madison waves as she walks down the sidewalk. I give her a wave back and turn to Layla.

She smiles sheepishly. "So, how did you like it?"

I shove my hands into my pockets as we walk down the sidewalk, side by side. "Well..."

"Don't you lie to me, either," she says with a laugh.

I smile softly. "I actually liked it. No offense, I just didn't know if this was gonna be something I'd enjoy. But once again, you proved me wrong."

"I'm glad you like it, then. You can come back anytime. I'd really like it if you did."

It's silent between us for only a second before I remember something that I need to do.

"I have something I need to tell you," I say, grabbing her arm lightly and pulling her to a stop. Why am I being so dramatic? I shake my head. "I just wanted to apologize for letting my sister into your room. I should have said it earlier, but, I'm sorry."

Her smile comes easily. "All is forgiven." She waves her hands between us.

We fall back into step along the sidewalk. "Also, thanks for today. I owe you big time."

"We'll call it even. You came with me tonight, and it was a lot of fun."

We continue on our way home, our conversations hitting almost every aspect of our lives.

*

"Hey, Jordy," I greet Jordan once I'm home and entering her room. I collapse onto her bed and see she scolds me.

"Moose is sleeping over here." She reaches to her other side where Moose is curled up against her. "Aren't you, Moosey Goosey?"

I chuckle. "Moosey Goosey?"

"Shut up." Jordan rolls her eyes. "I'm looking up that number that called both of us."

"Really?" I crawl up next to her and rest my head beside Moose. He lets out a yawn and settles back into a deep sleep.

"Yeah, look at this." Jordan turns her laptop so that I can see her screen. Her screen displays a Google Maps image. "It says the area code is from this place called Delaney, Arizona."

I narrow my eyes at the screen, trying to read more details that would make the name ring a bell.

Jordan's eyes grew wide and she swipes her computer back to type furiously into it. Once she's done, her face goes blank and I have no idea what's going on.

"Jordan? What is it?"

She turns her laptop back to me and I read it.

"I think this number is..." Jordan trails off, just as caught off guard as I am.

So I finish the sentence for her. Something neither of us expected – or wanted, for that matter.

"It's Mom's."

____________

The song for this chapter is Turn my Eyes by Bonray!

I'm SO sorry it took me so long to publish this. I've been putting it off so I could catch up more chapters!

Hey! It was a lot of fun for me to write Leo's lesson/sermon or whatever you'd like to call it. What he said is something very important to me, and it is also inspired by a lesson I learned in church. I hope you got something out of it! It was really ironic, actually.

As my preacher was giving the same lesson as Leo was, he was talking about Jonah (from the Bible) and how he had to draw the short straw. It was an insignificant move, but it led to Jonah's fellow sailors to find out that Jonah, like the Jonah in my story, was running from God. The pulling of his straw was very significant, though it seemed like it wasn't. This is a version of the story I found online:

"Then the sailors said to one another, 'Let's get to the bottom of this. Let's draw straws to identify the culprit on this ship who's responsible for this disaster (storm).' So they drew straws. Jonah got the short straw. Then they grilled him: 'Confess. Why this disaster? What is your work? Where do you come from? What country? What family?' He told them, 'I'm Hebrew. I worship GOD, the God of Heaven who made the sea and land.' At that, the men were frightened, really frightened, and said, 'What on earth have you done?' As Jonah talked, the sailors realized that he was running away from God (which is why they were caught in a storm). They said to him, 'What are we going to do with you to get rid of this storm?' By this time the sea was wild, totally out of control..." I believe the next part is when Jonah ended up inside a whale!

If you want to read Jonah's whole story in the Bible, go to the book of Jonah and read away! It's good stuff!