This week I have greatly struggled with the feeling of loneliness. Now, I was surrounded by people for the majority of my week, working as a nanny and spending time with my dear friends. So, in reality I was never really alone (confusing right?!). But, no matter how much time I spent with people when they left, I had a slight feeling of emptiness and sadness. I have felt this way before, especially last winter in the midst of my relapse and depression, so at first, I ignored it. However, the feeling continued to grow.
What I have learned through my years of being an introvert is that I crave a deep connection with my friends and those I surround myself with. I have never been good with small talk, or casually socializing. I am the type of person who wants to get to know your passions, what makes your day, what ruins it… all the parts of you that make you who you are. I am very curious, and I just love listening to people’s stories. So, when I am in a place where I do not have a friend who I connect with on a deeper level, or simply haven’t had a deep or intellectual conversation in a while with my close friends, I begin to feel alone.
This week, God confronted me in this situation, and really convicted me. See, I always count God out when it comes to this issue. In my mind, whenever someone mentions the cliché Christian phrase of, “You are never alone. God is always with you,” I kind of just brush it off with an… “I know you are right, but I can’t hug God or have a deep intellectual back and forth conversation with Him. It’s just not the same.” This week, however, God showed me how incredibly wrong I was to think like that.
I just finished a book titled, “Am I Enough,” and one of the chapters discusses relationships and prayer. The author wrote about her annoyance with the phrase “I don’t need a man… I am married to Jesus!” Her reasoning behind the slight resentment at the sound of that phrase was similar to my thinking… it’s just not the same kind of relationship or company. As she told stories of how this thinking changed, she comments on how God fulfilled everything she wanted in a man, and that through learning to love God most, she was able to love others better and better prepare herself for a relationship. In the end, she learned to love and even use that phrase because she knew that with God as number one in her life, she was fully content and could patiently wait for Him to write a man into her story. For now, she was happy growing in her relationship with God.
Now my situation is a bit different, but her revelation got me thinking about the cliché phrase I had come to despise. In reality, it has it all right. Deuteronomy 31:6 says, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you.” As I began to contemplate the book and this verse, I decided to give talking to God in my loneliness a try. I mean, He won’t ever get annoyed with my ramblings, and He wants to know me and have a deep relationship with me, so it is worth a shot, right? I just wasn’t sold on the whole… no audible response thing. However, as I sucked it up and began to talk to God in my car as I drove home from work, I realized it helped. It was as if God was whispering to me, “This is what I have been waiting for, daughter. This is the kind of relationship I want to have with you. You are not alone.” Then it hit me. All of my failed relationships in the past, lost best friends, seasons when I felt the lack of connection and loneliness so strongly it hurt, it was partially to teach me that when I felt like I had no one to reach out to, God was always there. He was patiently waiting for me to talk to Him as I would a friend, and to realize that prayer is not just for when I need help. It is for building a relationship with Him, the only one who can fill the emptiness. So, for the rest of the week when I felt lonely, I tried to turn to God first in prayer or through reading Scripture. And it turns out it wasn’t a one-time thing, it helped every time I turned to God, and I usually ended up with far more joy than I had before the conversation. I really was not alone because God was with me.
For me though, the battle is not ending this week. I am still a human being who naturally craves deep relationships with other humans. I am going to forget to turn to God, in fact I have already done so within the past few hours! This is definitely going to be a two steps forwards and three steps back kind of process, but I feel like a lesson God has been trying to teach me for years was finally revealed. Being open to accepting the lesson and willing to fail and learn from my failures through the process, however, will help me grow in my relationship with Christ as we talk about life. The good, the bad, and all of the ugly! And just like the author said, in finding contentment being alone with Christ, He will write in the perfect human relationships and grow relationships already in my life at the right time!
So, as you enter the weekend and this upcoming week, I encourage you to reach out to God in your loneliness. I know I am going to be fighting to make this a habit in my life, and the only way to do so is to mess up, get up, and keep repeating the practice until it becomes natural. I deeply desire reaching to God in my loneliness to be natural… even if I can’t sit across from Him in the coffee shop and talk like I do with friends. The cool thing is I am beginning to understand that always there actually means always there. We can always reach out to Him, and He will always listen. He is the best friend you could ask for, and He desires a deep relationship as much as you do! So, in your loneliness chat with God, He cannot wait to hear from you!
You, my dears, are never alone!
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