Often times people believe that the word “family” automatically initiates love, comfort, security and acceptance, however, that is not always the case. Family is merely a blood relation with no relevance to the importance designated to a single individual's worth. Often times, people will judge an entire family based on one person in the family, without understanding that an individual is a person despite their family, their surroundings or their past. And although many people may look to their family with admiration and love, what about those who don’t have that? What about the people that come from abusive home lives (physically or emotionally), or the people whose parents are alcoholics, or drug-addicts? Or maybe they’re orphans, or have been kicked out of their own home. Or perhaps it’s just a family that the individual feels a total disconnect towards. What about them?

I’ll be the first to say, they’re probably suffering with battles of their own. Whether it may be depression, anxiety, self-worth issues or even worse. And I cannot change these things, although I wish I could. I, myself, suffered with homelessness for the past 4 years of my life. I thought it was my fault for a long time. I thought I was the problem and that I was not worth what the world of importance had to offer. I thought I was a lost cause because my own family did not want me anymore. I lost sight of my faith, my morality, my sanity and my humanity. I became a static character in my own life and it took me understanding the concept of family and love before I could find any appreciation for myself. Apart from the depression I was facing, I was working four jobs, running track and cross-country and going to school. By some act of God, I was noticed and got the privilege to run in college (and for that matter—even go to college.) God was watching out for me and helped me create a small, work-in-progress life for myself that I could not have made on my own, despite my lost soul.

I am not here to concern everyone that reads my article of my own hardships, yet to elude a lesson that I struggled with for a long time: family is not blood. As many times as I’ve cried myself to sleep wishing that was not true, it is. Family is the people that love and care for you and are there for you. Family is a feeling, not a blood relation. And although I struggled a long time to trying to understand that, I now can look back on the past four years of my life with understanding so much deeper of what family truly is. When I was homeless in high school, my friends became my family, and since then the bond I’ve created with them has blossomed into something that is a lifetime and to which I will always consider family. Even in the time of my encounter with them, I failed to realize that the acts they were doing for me were acts of love, such as: letting me stay at their house, cooking me meals or buying me things to make it to college that I could not have bought on my own. I now know that family is being able to be surrounded by people who make you feel like you are worth it.

Family isn't blood, and that's something that's always been hard for me to grasp. Family is the people that genuinely care about you, and look out for you. It's the people you can lay around watching movies, and eating junk food with on a Sunday afternoon and feel perfectly safe and accepted by. It doesn't need to be blood. Family is a feeling, I cannot stress that enough. And even more so, a connection between people, that then creates a bond of perfect comfort and acceptance to which is: "family." Blood isn't part of the equation. And that is the odd and mysterious beauty of family that is so hard for so many, such as myself, to understand. I am so thankful for the family that God has placed in my life, even if only few members of the people I consider family have any blood relation to me.

Lord knows I did not feel worth it for a very long time, and I’m sure I was not always the most fun person to be next to, but it took me strengthening my mind to understand that I am worth it, despite being homeless, or despite feeling worthless. I had to train my mind to know that life isn’t about the past, and we cannot always control what happens to us, however, the future is still a blank canvas to which it is our own duty to make beautiful or captivate and en-lock ourselves in our past. The future is a choice to which the past has no control over. And some people may not understand their worth apart from their past, and I will be praying for those individuals, because I have been there and I know how that feels.

Love is a hard thing to feel, and if you’ve grown up in a household abundant in love be thankful always. And if you have not, look around!! You do have people that are offering love, and are there for you, and although it may not be the people you want to see offering love, don’t overlook it. Family is a feeling, not a blood bond. Family is comfort and caring, and it is not always the image you’d like to see, but don’t forget to appreciate what you have right in front of you. I believe God would never put a being on this world with no way for them to feel love. However, people do not always receive the love they are looking for, and in those circumstances, look at what you do have. Look to the friends that have never left your side. Look to the families who want to see you succeed. Look to the people who appreciate you and see your worth, whether that means a teacher, a friend or even your family. Love is there, sometimes it’s in hiding, and sometimes it doesn’t appear how you’d like it to, but it’s there.