Are you lonely?
What does it mean to be lonely?
My dictionary defines the word as “dejected by the awareness of being alone.”
I can probably count on one hand the number of times I have been lonely, yes my friends, introverts can get lonely too. I think a better word to describe what I was feeling at those times would be “abandoned”, I felt completely abandoned by everyone and everything. Thankfully those episodes have been short-lived and rare. But not everyone is as lucky as me. The last few years have seemed like a nonstop assault on our spirits. Many of our relationships have become two-dimensional as we stare at one another on Zoom meetings. It has been said there is an epidemic of loneliness.
Loneliness does not discriminate by class or race or even circumstance. You can be lonely at work. You can be lonely in a crowd. You can be lonely in a marriage. Loneliness can lead to despair; it can drain the color from our world. Fear of it can trick us into bad relationships. No one wants to be uncherished. But while severe loneliness is certainly bad for us, social isolation is not healthy. Normal loneliness is not. if you are lonely sometimes you are normal, there is nothing wrong with you, you need not fear.
It is strange that loneliness is even a thing; in many ways to be human is to be alone. You can only be one person at a time. We are alone in our heads. We are alone with our thoughts. Sometimes there is an odd sweetness to loneliness, and we feel the need to lean into it as it settles in and becomes like a bittersweet melancholy. At those times we know instinctively that no amount of human companionship will resolve it. We feel solitary, even desolate. No number of friends or lovers will ever scratch that itch. What is that? Why do we regularly yearn for things this world cannot offer? Why are we lonely?
You have been made for relationship. You are engineered for community. We cannot avoid this; it is imprinted on our souls. You exist in the image of God and God is a community. God is a trinity, three in One. can I explain that? Of course not, don’t be silly. But it is true, nonetheless. God is one “what” but three “who’s”. He is truly a strange and remarkable being. The implications of this doctrine are staggering. God has never been alone. He has never been unhappy, or in need of anything or anyone. Yet here we are.
It means that God did not create people because he was lonely, or he needed servants or worshippers. It means he made us because he wanted us. He wanted to share with us his own fullness. You were created for fullness, for beauty, for delight. Do not settle for less. The loneliness you feel at times is a reminder of this. it is a signpost pointing to your desire, and your need, for transcendence.
So do not be too hard on yourself when you feel lonely. It is a sign of health. Drink it in but do not wallow in it. Do not let it dismay you. See it for what it is, a whisper from Heaven. Now cancel that Zoom meeting, put away your phone, and go outside and play with the other people.
You are not alone.
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but it sure makes the rest of you lonely.”
- Charles M. Schulz
“It is not good for the man to be alone.”
- God