Loneliness can be an overwhelming emotion, no matter how old a person is. It is a part of every human being, as surely as the heart is. We cannot avoid it. Loneliness is a built-in piece of us.
The first time I can remember feeling a terrible loneliness was at three years old. My mother had taken me to visit a children's nursery school. I knew we were not going to stay. We were just visiting. I watched all the children, enjoyed the tiny cups the teachers gave me warm cocoa in, then my mother and I went out the door, to go home. Did I become interested in something, and forget to stay with her? All of a sudden, I heard her car start, and she began to drive away. Instantly, in my infant mind, the absolute belief flung itself over me, that she was leaving me, and I would NEVER see her again. I ran, crying to the fence, shrieking in desperation at the top of my lungs, hanging on to the wire. She saw me, stopped, came back in and got me. She told me she wasn't going to leave me, she was only turning the car around. But the utter desolation of that moment was the end of the world to me. Fifty years later, the memory is just as sharp.
Every human being knows the feeling of loneliness. We are lonely when we miss someone we love, who is gone. But we can also be just plain lonely within ourselves, at any time. We can feel horribly lonely in the midst of a family and husband, or anywhere. Why is loneliness such a common human condition?
There is a place inside each of us where we are always alone. We will find ourselves aware of this place now and then, whether we want to or not. It doesn't matter if we are in the midst of tens of thousands of people at a concert, or by ourselves up a mountain, we can feel alone anytime. Sometimes this place inside feels satisfying, and peaceful. Other times this place hurts us with a sharp and savage pain.
* [When] I would comfort myself against sorrow, my heart [is] faint in me. Jer 8:18
I believe that the painfully cruel place of loneliness, has been put there for a very important reason. The place that no other human being can fill, and comfort, is the place where our spirits reach out for help, and search for God.
How often would we turn to Christ if we were filled with completion and satisfaction every moment of our lives? If you think about it, that place of aching loneliness inside, might be the only time we can be truly still. The best place to hear the voice of God.
Perhaps it would help to try to define loneliness. A great deal could be written, doing that. Let's see if I can make it simple, and able to briefly cover all the kinds of loneliness.
We think our loneliness is a vacuum, an absence of something or someone we need. We think loneliness is a nothing place. But no, our loneliness is a very tangible thing. It is real. It has actual existence. Just as being naked would seem to be someone who was missing their clothes, yet the person's nakedness is a concrete state. A real position. A visible thing.
What if loneliness was an empty box? What if we knew absolutely what or who would fill that box, and satisfy our longings, and make us not lonely any more? But what if we prayed and prayed for God to put that gift in our box, yet He in silence, left our box empty still?
If we could hold our loneliness in our hands, and see it, and put a value to it, would we see it in a different light? The empty box is of great value to us. Some people fall in a pit of despair over it. Many take illegal drugs, and search to fill it through other hopeless, human ways. Some die over it.
This box holds great expectations for you. You know just how heavy it will be, when it gets filled. You know what a thrill it will be to hold it in your arms. You know that you will be happy the rest of your life, when God finally gives you the gift. So you sit around, and the longer the box sits empty, the more you see that your life just isn't very good without it. In fact, you don't know how you ever lived without it. After a while, you begin to ask God if He will bring your gift SOON. Every day you think more and more about how very deeply you really need this gift.
You have the choice to slide downhill from this point. Choice? What other choice? There is one other choice. If you become able to see this choice, God will be surprised, and pleased. Then He will watch closely, to see what you will do with this knowledge.
Instead of hanging on tightly to this box that is a misery to us, unwilling to let it go, because we so long for it to be filled, could it occur to us to offer it up to God, as a gift of great value? A big empty ache inside, called loneliness, has the capability of robbing you of joy for the rest of your life, if you hold it close, and nurture it. So think what a gift it would be, if you gave it to God! How could a person do that?
Well, think of that empty box, which you wish God had filled with a gift for you. He has not chosen to give you the gift you want, at this time. You can fret over the empty box, and sorrow over it. Certainly I have. I have held up my empty box, and asked God if He would please give me the gift I so desired. He has said no, by His silence.
Your other choice is to give the empty box back to God, and tell Him that if it is not His will to give you the gift right now, then you are willing to give it to Him, and let it go.
If you want to be able to do this, but cannot, tell Him that. Tell Him how very much you do still want your heart's desire, though you are willing to WANT to give it to Him. Tell Him you will need Him to help you not want it; to untie the strings that will free you from your box. Tell Him you don't want to live in loneliness for what you don't have. You want to live rejoicing for what you DO have. You want to be fulfilled with the things God HAS given you.
What must it be like for God, to receive such an empty box, worn with being held, wet with tears, heavy with sorrow? What does this poor old box represent to Him?
If you give your lonely box of longing to God in this way, you have given Him a gift of great value. You have given Him your trust that He knows best. You have given Him your faith in His perfect timing. You have given Him your humility, in accepting His answer of "no." You have given Him your grace, in desiring to learn more about what God wants you to do. You have given Him your love, and the knowledge that you know how much He loves you. You have given Him your obedience. And as His smile warms you, you will find you are giving Him joy - the joy that only an obedient heart can give.
Perhaps He has been patiently waiting, with a different gift He wants to give you. A gift that needs a different size of box. A gift that you would never have gotten, if you continued to cling too hard to the one box you valued so highly. Perhaps when you look up, with open arms, and an open heart, He will show you a new blessing, a new joy.
* I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow. Jer 31:13b
* Their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all. Jer 31:12b
© 2004 Rosemary Gwaltney
Loneliness