These are my thoughts

As I read my past blog entries from my freshman year of college, I feel like I am reading into the life of a totally different person. Three years ago I felt worthless, unloved, depressed, and very lonely. I remembered walking down the street outside of campus hearing the chatter of people around me thinking they were talking bad about me. I know this sounds a tad dramatic, but let me assure you that all of it is true. It wasn't a mindset I chose to start thinking in, it just happened when I believed a lie. 

When you are pulled from your comfort zone, something you have been familiar with for so long, the tendency is that what you believe in is all put to the test. Things you thought you knew about yourself will go through the fire, and if it doesn't withstand it, it will burn. And just like any situation in life that's what happened with me. 

When I came to Korea for the first time in eight years I was excited. I'm not going to lie, I was looking forward to see familiar things from my childhood. Eating legit Korean food that I haven't had in a long time and even meeting people I knew. The amusement quickly died down when I started college and realized that my mom would leave me to go back to Egypt and I would be all alone. My family has left me once to go ahead of me to Egypt while I tried to finish my school year in the Philippines, but they left me in our house with my aunt and my cousin. So it wasn't too much of a change, but this time my world went upside down when everything was new and I was the only thing familiar to me. 

I later found out that although my college was a Christian college, it was known as one of the top party schools in Korea and every single orientation I attended invited all the incoming freshman to go clubbing and drinking afterwards. This frustrated me a lot! Because God called me to Korea! He was the one that wanted me to attend this specific college! He was the one that promised that He would provide and He has so much in store for me here. Where was all that? Where was the community He promised? Where is the slightest hint of His presence in these people? I couldn't find any of it anywhere! 

Last week one of our pastors at church preached on loneliness. So yes I did not just open a can of worms for no reason. The sermon really made me think back to when I was lonely and going through a hard time. I still get lonely here and there, it's a lot different from what it used to be.

As I sat through the sermon one thing really hit me, she said that we all experience that feeling in our life, because we feel like we lack something in our lives. Just like hunger and thirst. It is something we were made to crave in our lives. She said we were made for intimacy. That's why we get lonely, we need intimacy! We were made for community and intimacy with Him. So interesting that she put it in the sense. 

Now 3 years later as I sat through that sermon what she spoke of resonated in my heart. I looked at the people around me and knew that this was my family and that there was a reason I am here. These people were the ones that walked me through every step, and broke off every lie that the enemy was speaking about my worth. It was this family that open heartily embraced a hurting girl and loved on her the way Christ would. It was through that love that I no longer saw myself as lonely. In the sermon she mentioned that God always puts the lonely into families and I couldn't agree more. 

Dear friends, you are a part of a much bigger family. Know that you are not alone in any circumstance. 

Blessings and Love,

Marie