Familiar Faces

There are few people in my life right now that know how things are "going" with me. They know the batches of loneliness that I have tried and usually failed at getting through. Most of this loneliness comes from just simply missing and aching for my family. There is something about having people near you that will love you unconditionally that won't fake it to make it to your face or be nice because they have to. 

I recently have been missing my family so badly that it was driving some parts of my heart to places of depression. I have worked tirelessly to get past this and honestly I was getting just plain exhausted. Even with these struggles I love how good our God is, he knows exactly what we need when we actually need it. Some how, some way he managed to create a scenario where I had those familiar faces back around me. 

My sister in law and nephew came to stay with us for a week and two days and during that time I had my  mom and two sisters from Washington here as well. All this family time brought around my crazy busy sister in law who does live here but is genuinely unavailable. We had pj parties and coffee runs, tv shows and trampoline craziness not to mention awesome home made snow cones. 

I don't think I have laughed so freely and so hard in an entire year. Our family has had some really ugly storms hit us and laughter really is the BEST medicine. There was so much healing in having all the kids together all 5 cousins playing, laughing, and wrestling together. It gave me so much hope for our future that even though there are still some lingering storm clouds over our family and over my loneliness, I know that Joy is also in our future and above all the promise of hope! 

Yesterday concluded my "family reunion" as I had to take my sister in law and nephew back to the train station. I can't explain it but as we drove,  through all of our silly stories and laugh's we both kept choking back silent sobs. This is her home, and she was leaving behind pieces of her as I was losing pieces of me with her leaving. She isn't my blood relative but she understands more about who I am than most people ever have cared to. When the train actually came and they boarded I completely lost it, tears just flowed free so horribly bad that I couldn't drive for at least 5 minuets. I searched my heart trying to figure out why it was hurting so badly to see them go and I realized that I am so tired of being alone. I have my husband and his family as well as my church family which absolutely covers a certain amount of my loneliness but when you come from such a big family and one that is as close as ours it is nearly impossible to be with out them. No one can love me the way my family does at least no one has tried to love me as much as they have. 

After the train I started out on my hour and a half drive back to Redmond with a stained pink sky and blaring loud worship music playing. I realized something new in that moment, I realized that not only had God created this entire week out of all the time we have here on earth for me to have my family back but he also created this small moment in time where I had an entire car and radio to my self. I had the sky and the tree's and best of all the summer sun. All these little things that I love and that I haven't had in such a long time. We serve such a good and loving father. He truly knows and understands all of our needs.. even if they take time.