Currently Listening Of Joy & Sorrow By Denison Witmer see related

Alonely

In my life I have been bad at being lonely. A report card would show that I have a tendency towards medicating the pain of loneliness with hollow attempts at intimacy with the fairer gender.  Pain has lead to more pain and so it goes...

Loneliness happens.  Sometimes it comes on you like a autumn chill, unannounced and bitter.  This is the perfect relationship that tanks in a moment and hearts are crushed.  Sometimes it comes slowly and creeps at you as you wait in agony.  This is the diagnosis of cancer and the 5 years of slowly losing a friend.  Finally, something feels pulled out of you when they are gone.

Loneliness happens in close proximity to others too.  I've heard it said that a crowd can be the loneliest place to be and I think that can be true.  A husband and wife can sleep in the same bed every night and feel a loneliness that burns in their bones.  Loneliness happens to single children and the middle kid in a family of 5.  Loneliness happens to the most popular kid in school when his dad won't recognize his acheivements. Loneliness happens to a forty-something man who reallizes he has spent his whole life chasing the thing that he thought would make him happiest only to reallize that it wouldn't satisfy the loneliness in his soul.  Loneliness happens to a newlywed bride who finds out her husbands' deep hidden secrets.

I feel like I am on this journey of attacking loneliness before it can attack me.  I am by no means alone; I have great friends. But I sleep alone and it is good.  One day I hope to have a good wife who loves me but I don't want her to love me so that I'm not alone.  Far to many lovers get intwined because of mutual loneliness.  Thus, relationships are coping mechanisms for this all-surpassing fear of loneliness. 

I want to worship God with my loneliness.  I don't want to begrudgingly drag my feet through this season.  I want to learn to lean on the Everlasting Arms rather than try to prop myself up with less wild lovers. When you are allowed to see it for what it is, loneliness is a thrilling adventure really.  It is an invitation to a powerful and intimate relationship with Jesus alone.  It is not glamourous and it won't sell books but I think it might be exactly what I need so I can be the man of God He desires me to be. 

So I will call this joy.  James tells me to.  Pure joy.  This is a trial that brings perseverance and maturity perhaps like no other. 

For that I am grateful.