Silent Walls in Tokyo

Dear Lord, the walls of this tiny apartment in Tokyo are closing in on me tonight. It has been three years since I left my family in Bacolod, and the silence here is so loud it deafens me. I came here with the promise of a better life, thinking that working double shifts would secure a future for my children, but now I wonder if I am just a ghost sending money to a home I no longer recognize. Why does every yen I earn feel like it costs a piece of my soul?

My Tatay always told me that sacrifice is the greatest act of love, but what if the sacrifice is the very thing destroying the love? I miss the smell of chicken inasal on the streets of Bacolod, the noise, the chaos, the warmth of my wife’s hand. Here, everything is clinical, precise, and cold. I find myself staring at the wall until the sun rises, asking You, where are You in this concrete maze? Have You forgotten the man who prays in a foreign tongue, hoping You can still hear my Visayan whisper?

Sometimes I think about just walking away, boarding a flight back to the Philippines, even if it means we go back to having nothing. Is this my purpose, Lord? To be an ATM machine in a distant land while my children grow up through video calls that freeze? I feel so disconnected from Your grace, as if I am too far away for You to reach me. Please, I need to know You are still here, because I feel like I am fading into nothingness.