Mama and Papa are at the office and will be working till late tonight. Ben’s gone to chorus practice and won’t be back till very late tonight. Berek left very early this morning for a five-day Christian college students camp and won’t be back till late Saturday night. This is the first time I’ve been home alone in months and I almost feel like crying. I have the best parents and brothers in the world.

Ben’s been studying harder this summer than I’ve ever seen him study before. He’s trying to finish up the correspondence college courses he has left and planning on going to the States next year for theological studies. Ever since he was a toddler, he’s steadfastly prayed and sought for one thing, and one thing only: to become a missionary/pastor in Tokyo. I respect him for never having swerved from that one goal, and I pray God will bless him and guide him for that steadfastness. Ben has been my spiritual and emotional anchor when I go ballistic (which is all the time). We’ve been each other’s confidantes for as long as I can remember.

Berek’s also studying really hard now. He’s in the same correspondence curriculum as Ben, but he’s got a year more of work to finish up. When I woke up this morning and realized I wouldn’t see him till Saturday, I felt like a big, gaping hole had been blown open in our family. OK, so it’s only five days. But I’m missing him so much already. Last night, I set my my alarm clock to go off at 6:00 am but it seems like the stupid thing decided to get broken today, of all days, so I didn’t get to say good-bye.

I miss Berek. I miss not understanding what he’s saying when he bursts into the living room talking about something so excitedly. I miss his incoherent grunts when I ask him a question. I miss yelling at him to answer me more clearly. I miss his great cooking. I miss him knocking shyly on my door to ask me to fix something on his computer. I miss his lips-pulled-over-mouthfull-of-braces-with-many-colored-rubberbands smile. I miss asking him to explain to me some philosophical or theological thing that I don’t understand. I miss him so much.

There are only a few more months the five of us will be together as family. Then one by one, us kids will leave for grad school and/or seminary and the family will be all split up. I still am looking forward to leaving home and spreading my wings. It’s a good and blessed thing we’re all growing up. But it hurts. This has been the happiest year of my life and I want to cherish it as much as I can. Not to say that it has been the easiest or most fun year of my life, but I’ve never been happier. I can’t believe it’s already the end of August.

From the time I was about five years old, what I wanted more than anything was to leave home and be independent. Then two years ago there came a time when I almost had to leave home forever. I realized how much I had been blessed, how much I would be losing, and suddenly became very thankful to God for all He had given me.

Why is it that when you start to become thankful for something you’ve taken for granted that it has to be taken away from you? Everything around us is so frail, so fleeting. Everything changes, everything dies. Only God can be a refuge, only He does not change.

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.