8th grade came and went pretty fast. I don’t remember a lot of it, except for my math teacher, who had an issue with the way I did my work in his class. He wasn’t the most liked teacher in the school, mostly because he had a very strict, “my way or the highway” sort of attitude, and didn’t tolerate students who went against his ways. I drove him up the wall, and not even intentionally. I was very well behaved in his class, I just didn’t do my work the way he wanted it to be done.

My 8th grade algebra teacher convinced me I was bad at math, even though I usually got the correct answers. I just did my math differently than everyone else. I got frustrated very quickly, because I got consistent Cs on all of my assignments, along with little notes in the corner of my papers saying things like, “Do questions 1-4 correctly next time”, or, “You didn’t write your work down in order”. I kept trying, but the harder I tried, the harder I failed. So I just stopped caring. I figured I just needed to accept that I terrible at solving equations and dealing with proofs, and instead focus more on the things I could do, which at the time, was kicking and punching rubber dummies in Tae Kwon Do.

I felt myself slipping into depression. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was growing distant from everyone else, I was exhausted, and I didn’t look forward to anything. I just wanted to lay on the couch and watch movies at home over the weekends, and once again I started hating school. I wasn’t being bullied, but my life was boring, which was almost just as bad to me. I needed something to shake things up, but there was nothing. I was stuck in an endless loop of school, martial arts, treatments, food, and sleep. There was nothing else happening. I knew I had a lot going for me, but I didn’t know where I was going. In fact, I felt like I was going nowhere.

I told my family that I felt empty inside, and my grandpa suggested I gave God another shot. I still didn’t consider myself religious in any way, but my grandpa assured me that if I prayed again, God would know how to fill the void in my life. So, I did. It was a very simple prayer. I don’t actually remember anything I said in it, but in my heart I hoped that something exciting would happen. I didn’t really believe anything would happen, but I assumed that if something did happen, I would definitely know.

Weeks went by. Christmas came and went, as did January, and then I got a phone call from my dad on Valentines Day. He told me he was packing up my bedroom at his house, and I wouldn’t be staying at his house anymore over our weekends together. My stepmom got full custody of my stepbrother, and our fights were so bad that the tension in the house was unbearable. My dad did his best to convince me it had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with my stepmom’s custody of my stepbrother. Still, it felt like my heart got ripped out of my chest. I told my dad that I understood, and we both said, “I love you”, before I hung up the phone and curled up in a fetal position on my bed, and cried myself to sleep.

I was pretty depressed and resentful for months after that. I was pissed at God. He had proven His existence to me, not just through that, but through several medical miracles as well. However, I felt like He was taking my dad away from me, and I once again believed God was more evil than He was loving. I was also upset at my dad, since he didn’t stand up for me. Instead, he just bowed down at my stepmom’s feet, and agreed to take me out of the household.

I lost a lot of weight and was more exhausted than ever. I was depressed and full of grief. But, slowly things started to make more sense. I still got to see my dad every other weekend. We just stayed at friends’ houses or hotels, which means I got to spend a lot more time with my dad. Plus, we went on a lot of adventures together, especially when summer arrived, that lasted longer than a couple short days.

When summer came, I looked back on what happened, and realized God did something amazing for me. He wasn’t taking away my dad. Instead, He was protecting me. Sure, it was very painful to lose something like that so suddenly, but it was for my own good, and for the good of my relationship with my dad. In hindsight, my dad and I were growing distant while I was around my stepmom. He didn’t hear what my stepmom would tell me when we were alone, and had no idea who to believe. I stopped blaming my dad for being unable to protect me, because he was never around to see or hear my stepmom go after me. Instead, I was just glad I was able to get away from such a toxic environment and still keep the people in my life I’ll always love the most.