Missing My Childrens' Childhood

Dear Lord, the silence in this Riyadh apartment is becoming louder than the wailing of the city outside. I am staring at the screen of my phone, replaying a video of my youngest daughter’s graduation in Bataan, and I realize I have missed almost everything. I have spent seven years scrubbing floors and serving tea in this foreign land so we could have a concrete house, but now that the walls are painted, my children barely know my voice when I call.

Why does it feel like I am trading the very life I wanted to protect? I send money every month, and I tell my husband to make sure the kids eat healthy, but God, I am tired of being a voice on a speaker. My heart is heavy with the guilt of missing the scraped knees, the first crushes, and the daily laughter. Did I make the right choice? Have You forgotten that I am here too, weeping in the dark while my family is an ocean away?

I feel like a stranger in my own home whenever I dare to dream of going back. I am scared that if I leave this job, we will go back to the poverty we fought so hard to escape. But I am also scared that if I stay, I will lose the very connection to the people I live for. Lord, where are You in the midst of this hollow sacrifice? What do I do when my provision has become my prison?