Loneliness

When I was asked to write a blog post, I wasn’t sure what to do. I have wanted to write one for a long time, but as I normally do, I doubted that I could do it! I wasn’t sure what to write it on. As they say, the best topics to write on are the subjects you really know, or something that you have experienced. So the lightbulb went off! “Loneliness” thats it! Loneliness hits close to home as it has been a real, continual struggle for me. This is a hard subject to discuss. I haven’t told many people that this is a struggle of mine. I felt this is something that needed to be talked about with so many people out there who struggle with it. 

Over the past few years with all the chaos the world has thrown us, the number of people dealing with loneliness is astronomical. Polls show that 60% of people in the United States right now are lonely on a regular basis! Wow! Those numbers are bigger than obesity; worse than diabetes! Loneliness is the highest and leading cause of suicide and the greatest killer of our youth today. Loneliness is something we can’t overlook or bury our heads in the sand and act like this isn’t going on in our community/church. 

Loneliness is what we feel when we’re isolated from others. It usually has less to do with others not being there and more to do with us “feeling” not connected or “feeling” alienated from others, or even “feeling” misunderstood by others. If we are honest, these feelings are more painful than their actual absence, because we feel those emotions of being rejected and not liked. 

Loneliness is a hard thing to let anybody know we are dealing with. Men and women, mostly men, struggle with letting anybody know how they are feeling. They don’t want anybody to know that they are struggling and feeling lonely. We also withdraw ourselves because of the loneliness and in turn, we keep it locked inside of us and the more we keep it to ourselves the more it will hurt and the more we will separate.

This is why it is hard for me to write and talk about this. Because I struggle with feeling lonely, and honestly I feel all by myself. There are times when I feel like I’m on an island all by myself. It feels like a losing battle. It feels like nobody even acknowledges that I even exist! Even at church I struggle with finding myself on that island all by myself wanting people to talk to me, making an effort to reach out to people but in the end I just feel lonely and alone!

I’m not saying these things for sympathy, or for you to feel sorry for me. But the reason I am opening up to you, is that as an Elder of this church and a leader of this church I want you to know that loneliness isn’t just for certain people, but loneliness is something everyone suffers with. It’s very important when you struggle with loneliness to understand. We may feel lonely, but we are not under any circumstances alone! Amen! (Deuteronomy 31:6) We believe the lie of the enemy, that we are alone, and we are scared of being alone. We feel we are going through life by ourselves! We are believing the lie by relying on our feelings, instead of relying on what the Bible tells and shows us. That God provides us with the Holy Spirit and the Church to battle our loneliness! We are to be there for each other, we are to encourage each other, to grow each other. We are to truly and actually care for each other. When we do these things for each other we will never be “alone” (Matthew 28:20)!

No one has experienced or understands loneliness like Jesus!

“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”  – Isaiah 53:3

 Jesus Himself knew loneliness. Jesus Himself was a part of the most lonely moment in history! By Him dying on the cross, He felt forsaken (Matthew 27:46). Jesus, who became sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21) was all alone on the cross. There is not a more lonely moment than what Jesus went through. At the cross Jesus was the loneliest human being ever. He can and does understand our loneliness. He understands what it’s like to be lonely. He truly gets it! He sympathizes with us (Hebrews 4:15)! He not only understands what we go through, but guess what, He destroys that loneliness! 

Because on the cross He took our sin, the sin that by all accounts should cause us all to be separated from God because of our rebellion against Him. But Jesus died on our behalf, bore our sins. So, by His work on the cross, we are no longer strangers to God, but are fellow citizens of His family (Ephesians 2:19). So, because of what Jesus did in the loneliest moment in history, we can with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16). And with that we, as fellow Christians, must help each other in their times of loneliness by extending the same love that destroys loneliness and aloneness and that is the love of Jesus!