Feb 26th, 2021: Loneliness is Universal

 
Loneliness grows from individual ache to public health hazard - The Washington Post

 

I have been thinking a lot about what a young person wrote in a poem describing her loneliness. She was honest while talking about her dissatisfaction and her doubts in dealing with her faith in God. She also seems to questions the sincerity and the authenticity of those who claim to be His people. She was not angry. She was overwhelmed by her loneliness.


I might not share the sentiment of her loneliness. However, I can identify with the loneliness she feels in some ways.


Loneliness is part of the journey in being with God. Life is simple if we feel God's presence and comfort all the time. Sometimes we feel as if we live our life not with God, but with the idea of God in our head. It doesn't mean we don't have faith. It is about living in between the already and the not yet in terms of God's revelation.


Loneliness is what we have to experience while living in this world and decide not to belong to it. It is a part of our life journey that we have to walk alone with the hope to see God more clearly. When that doesn't happen, the loneliness is excruciatingly hard. We enter the quietness of existence where we face the mirror of our true self.


Loneliness can be our discovery of our broken self while aiming to be whole. We want to be hopeful, and yet we struggle with our persisting and nagging temptations. We want to declare our victory over the evil one, but we struggle to find our ways. We fight against our chronic condition of selfishness and self-conceit. We wait for the morning to rise while remaining in the darkness of the night.


Loneliness is a universal human condition because sin is universal.


2 Corinthians 1: 3-4

 

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God."

 

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