This past week I got one of the best Christmas presents that I have ever received: My parents returned home from India. My dad and mom are missionaries to India and have been across the world for the past three months.

While it is a wonderful mission that they are on, it is hard to live without them sometimes.

You really don’t realize how much you depend on your parents until they aren’t just a phone call away. We are very blessed in this case because we can text to India for only 20 cents. Needless to say, there was plenty of texting going on from September to December.

While in India, they were in three car wrecks and mom was bitten by a spider. Now understand, in India people have wrecks all the time. They drive like crazy people and it ends up creating many vehicular messes. So while the wrecks weren’t a big deal, there are other things that do seem

bigger.

One bigger incident was the whole spider ordeal. When Mom called and said she had been bitten by a spider and it was swelling up and she was going to the doctor, that is a bad feeling. It was just the realization that there was not one thing in the whole wide world that I could do for her, other than pray.

There are up-sides to your parents being in India. Take for instance when you are sick in the middle of the night. There were a couple of times over the past few months that my babies woke up with high fevers in the middle of the night. We don’t want to wake people, so usually you would just keep it to yourself and hurry to the doctor the next morning. But when they are 11 hours away, our wee hours of the morning are midday for them. So you can call anytime of the night for special prayer needs.

And don’t let me forget the great gifts they bring back. When grandparents come home form India, there are plenty of “princess” dresses and toy dinosaurs to go around.

We, bigger girls, get Indian jewelry and bracelets that are typically too small, but too cute to give away.

I thank God that He gave my parents a safe trip to and from India. I also thank Him for the time that we get together throughout the year.

If you still have your parents with you, be sure to thank God for them today.