When Silence Feels Like Absence

Dear Lord, the desert heat outside my window feels like a mirror to how dry and empty I feel inside. I have been here in Dubai for three years, and while the money helps pay for my brother's tuition back in Bacolod, I am drowning in silence. Every shift as a cleaner feels longer than the last, and the small room I share with three others is no sanctuary, just a place to sleep until the next shift begins.

I catch myself staring at the pictures of my family pinned to my locker, wondering if they know that their 'success story' is actually a man who hasn't felt joy in months. I used to laugh so much when we would gather for Sunday lunch, sharing sinigang and jokes under our mango tree. Now, I feel like a ghost haunting my own life. Why do You allow this distance? Does this sacrifice actually please You, or am I just wasting my prime years chasing dirhams while my soul turns to dust?

I am not asking for a miracle of wealth, just for a sign that I am not invisible to You in this foreign land. Everyone says being an OFW is a blessing, but God, why does it feel like a slow kind of exile? Have You forgotten the boy from the province who used to sing in the choir, or am I just another face in the crowd here, lost and unreachable?

Your servant who feels like a stranger, Aris