The Faith of a Mustard Seed

Chapter Twenty-Two

Where are you? Why have you left me alone? Why would you leave me when I need you most? Why have you put me through this? Why me? Jasmine thought to herself standing staring out her bedroom window, tears slowly pooling down her face, her body shaking as her heart hammers. They know I took the money. They know what I did, and now they may kill me. He picked me up from school because he intends to torture the information from me, and he would have started had he not gotten a call from home.

Now I stand here waiting for my life to end. No one will miss me, no one will know why I did what I did. I no longer know why I did what I did. When my parents told me that they were sending me away, and that they wanted me to sign my accounts over to them that's when I started to realize that this is all much bigger than my choice to be a Christian.

Letting go of the heavy curtain that hangs over her window, Jasmine sighs rubbing her hands over her eyes. Walking to the corner near her closet she slowly sits down her back pressed firmly into the corner, her eyes trained on the bedroom door.

I always knew my parents hated me, though I never really knew why, but when I started to bring in a lot of money from singing, they pretended to care. After I told them I was a Christian, they went ballistic. Ever since then they've treated me like a speck of dust, like a nothing. The attacks started after Kami offered to let me move in with her, and after I found out I could leave them, legally.

They are using my faith against me, they are masking their true intent behind their disgust over my faith, but I see it, I've seen it since I was nine almost ten, and I lost my little sister, whose name I now carry. They've always hated me, but their love of money is why they pretend to care, and now that they are out of money, they have no use for me.

When I started this journey, I believed I was standing up for my faith, am I still? Do I still believe? Is Nathan, right? Is there really not a God? Wrapping her arms around the tops of her knees Jasmine, lay her head on her arms closing her eyes. Every time I've asked him to help, he hasn't stopped it, but at the same time, he has. When I was forced to vomit everything inside my stomach, I begged for it to end, and I lost consciousness.

When the interrogations began over the bank's actions, I pleaded for it to end, and Nathan's family finally was able to get them to let me leave. Every time I think I can take no more, and I call out, it stops, not in the way that I want, but it does stop.

Now I have a choice to make. I can either revert and say I no longer believe and go through this alone, or I can choose to believe and go through this with the knowledge that God is with me. I can choose to believe that although I can see no one, I am not alone. Can I really choose to keep my faith, even when I know that I am about to die?

I know he will torture me, until I finally tell him the location of the money, can I really keep my faith in something that will not keep me from this fate? Is my destiny really to die at the hands of these people over a small fortune? That's not fair, but then again, a small child dying of cancer isn't fair, neither is a veteran living on the streets. Life isn't fair.

Some go through this life with nothing unfair happening, and then there are others who are forced to go through the unfairness. I always believed that I was lucky, I had it all. I had money, fame, and in some ways, I had power. I was the master of my fate, and I was empty.

It wasn't until I found Jazz's bible that my world came into focus, I had received a bible before from Mr. Freeman, I did read it, and in some ways, I understood, but it was Jazz's bible that really pulled me into this faith. My baby sister that was suffering a terrible disease that even adults succumb to, she believed in a being, in a God, that we had been raised wasn't real, she had believed. She had no reason to, she was literally dying her body eating itself from within, and she still believed.