So it's that Time of Year.

It’s that time where people pull out a plastic tree from the attic, open up the boxes of ornaments, decorate their home with lights, and bake cookies to fit the occasion. It’s the time of year where families gather around sipping hot coca while watching the snow fall, enjoying dinners together and interacting in small talk seeing how each family member has been since they last saw them. It’s that time where people are somehow filled with joy either from the presence of family members or the unexplainable feeling they get when they see snow falling. Either way it is that time of year where everyone enjoys the holiday season with people they love and care about.

I always loved this time of year, no school, baking cookies, making cards and filling them with tons of little glittery stars, watching endless Christmas movies with my brothers, going ice skating, helping my family prepare for the parties we are hosting, drinking hot coca with them out on our balcony, those kinds of things. It was those things that I took pretty much for granted when I was with them, but oh how I long to be doing all that with them again. It seems that as much as this time of year can be a great time to spend time with family and friends it can also be one of the loneliest times for others. I used to always think, it couldn’t get that bad, but now having experienced it myself I can understand what they meant. Having finals don’t help either. I have to focus on writing papers and studying for tests when all I could think about was the things I would do with my family once I get home. My brain already traveled to the Philippines without me and was already on its vacation. I know I have to push through just a few more days, being with my family isn’t too far away. But it’s hard to focus when you’re feeling so lonely and long to go back home. I tried filling my time with other things to do like watching random YouTube videos, chatting with my friends, skypeing one of my best friends in Sudan (hi Lauren! :P), or spending the morning trying to clean my room at the same time skype call friends who are about to go to bed. I kept doing other things avoiding doing my papers cuz I knew that once I started the loneliness feeling would sink in and I would miss my family all the more. Then there came a time where I had nothing to do, but to start studying and writing my papers cuz I was running out of time. Like I expected the loneliness seeped through. I just sat there starting to miss my family and friends; wishing I could be there with them decorating the tree or attending Christmas parties, helping out at the Christmas Bazar, making Christmas cards with the kids I babysat, baking cookies with my brothers, and just chilling with friends. I stared at the seemingly empty wall right before me lacking Christmas decorations or any decorations for that matter cuz I am in the middle of packing all my stuff to head out and realized that this is how David, Joseph, and a lot of the characters from the Bible must have felt. When their enemies were after their lives, when they felt all alone, when all seemed so hopeless…what did they do? They turned to God for peace, for hope, for rest, and for security. They knew that no one else in this world could fulfill that longing inside of them when the tough situations arised. They just cried out to God, they let Him know of their every fear and emotion. They knew that God would hear their cries and would satisfy every little bit of them, for He is more than enough for us. So looking at my Bible heroes and what they did in those moments, I just gave it all to God. I told Him everything that was going on in my heart, the hurt I felt for not being with my family. After just laying it all down before Him, I felt peace. It was as simple as a daughter running to her father when she was hurt. It was just the feeling of knowing that He was right there with me comforting me when everyone else I relied on wasn’t there. It was basically God saying “Just cuz everyone else is with family doesn’t mean you aren’t.” and I knew that He was my family no matter where I go, no matter how lonely I felt I would never be alone. :)