God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And Wisdom to know the difference. ,

Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time
Accepting hardships as the pathways to peace;
taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;
trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His will;
that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him forever in the next.

Amen.

SeoHyun stood up from her kneeling position, and followed the rest of the acolytes out of the chapel. It has been over a month since she entered the convent, but to her it felt as though years have passed.

Entering the convent wasn’t as easy as SeoHyun thought. Despite the fact that being a nun was all she ever wanted to be in life, it was hard for her to adjust to convent life. For one, she missed home: on her very first morning in the convent, she missed the smell of her mom’s cooking so much that she found herself crying uncontrollably while in the shower. It was not so much the food that she missed but the presence of her mom, who had been one of the very few constants in her life ever since her dad left them when she was little.

And now I don’t even have my mom anymore.

There was one other constant in her life—but she pushed that out of her mind.

As she walked out of the chapel into the crisp morning, she saw some kids from their convent’s orphanage in the yard, squealing happily as they ran around and tried to tag each other. One of them, a girl, fell down and scraped her knee. At first she was silent, looking curiously at her wounded knee, but slowly her face started to scrunch up and she cried loudly.

The other kids ran around her in circles, screaming “Cry baby! Cry baby!” but one of them—another girl—pushed away the other kids and screamed at them for taunting the wounded girl. The other girl gestured as though she was going to punch them, causing the other kids to run away.

Something tugged at SeoHyun’s memory—and before she could stop herself, she smiled.

*Flashback*

“Nerd! Nerd! Nerd! Alien-eyes!”

SeoHyun was in the cafeteria, clutching her lunch box to her chest. It was her first day in middle school, but some students were already taunting her because of her overlarge glasses. As a result, no one wanted her to sit with them in their lunch table. It seems no one wanted the new girl with glasses to be associated with their clique.

Suddenly someone stuck out their foot and SeoHyun, seeing it too late, tripped—but just as suddenly someone grabbed her arm and stopped her from falling, pulling her close so that she won’t lose her balance.

“Are you alright?”

SeoHyun looked up and saw her for the first time: big doe eyes, thin but pink lips, loose hair that cascaded freely to her shoulders.

She didn’t wait for SeoHyun’s response, and instead turned to the whole cafeteria:

“If ever I hear any single one of you taunting her again,” here she raised a closed fist, “you’ll never see the light of day, I swear. Don’t mess with me.” She looked angrily at the people in the cafeteria, whose heads were bowed in fright.

*End flashback*

“Sister SeoHyun?”

SeoHyun woke up from her reverie, and saw that one of the acolytes was looking at her curiously.

“Are you alright? You look… dazed.”

“Ah, I’m sorry, I just remembered something.” SeoHyun smiled apologetically at the other acolyte, and they continued walking.

I hate to admit it, but… I kinda miss you.

* * *

It’s been hours since Yoona laid on her bed, staring at the ceiling.

Not that she was a total bum. She went job-hunting yesterday, and she was so tired she felt that she had to have a full day’s rest to recover.

She her side, towards her bedside table, and saw a framed picture of her and SeoHyun, taken years ago. Yoona smiled sadly. She took the picture from the table and removed it from its frame, because she knew that SeoHyun had written something behind it.

It was the prayer she taught her, years and years ago, and below it she wrote,

Always remember to pray, for our hearts are restless until they rest in God. J

Oh, the irony. Yoona sat up and looked out the window.

My heart is restless precisely because you have found rest in God, Yoona bitterly thought. You found rest, but what about me? Will I be forever haunted by the fact that I lost you to an intangible rival?

Yoona then turned to the sole religious object in her room—a wooden cross given by SeoHyun—and said to it out loud:

“How can you be so cruel as to take away the only woman I have ever, or will ever, love? How am I supposed to find serenity when the one who is supposed to grant me serenity, denied me just that?”

With angry tears in her eyes Yoona stood up from her bed, walked to the cross and threw it hard across the room, shattering it to pieces.

At that moment Yoona realized that all the atheists in the world were wrong.

There is one constant God. A merciless God.

* * *

August 24

Dear Diary,

Okay that was silly. :P But… I don’t know how to start this journal. I haven’t written a diary ever, so I am finding this homework by Sister Stella kind of hard to do, haha.

Hm. She said that we were supposed to write our thoughts here, to “empty” ourselves into these pages. She said, we should take special attention in emptying ourselves of our thoughts about the outside world, and… I do have a lot of thoughts about the outside world. No, not the usual everyday things that the other acolytes are missing (like the internet, or their favorite TV show), but…

Ah, I don’t know.

But Sister Stella said that no one’s ever going to read this, so I guess it’s alright if I write everything here…

I miss her. How am I supposed to get used to life without her?

There, I said it.

* * *

How is she?

I miss her so much. 

But I guess she doesn’t give a damn about me. Ugh.

Arrgh why do I still care if she gives a damn or not?

Aaaand why the hell am I writing on a piece of tissue??

You’re going crazy, Im Yoona. OTL

“Yoona! Yoona’s coffee here!”

Yoona stood up from her seat and went over to the counter to pick up her coffee, leaving the tissue with her writing on the table.