Emotions of pain -- loneliness

Be sure of this: I am with you always (Matthew 28:20).

Several hundred years ago, a Frenchman was imprisoned in a dungeon. Sitting alone day after day in his dank cell, he seemed to have been forgotten by everyone. In loneliness and despair, he took a stone and scratched these words on the rough wall: “Nobody cares.”

One day, the prisoner noticed a green shoot peeking out through a crack in the stone floor. As the days went by, it began to reach up towards the light coming in through the tiny window at the top of the cell. It continued growing until at last it was large enough to bud. Then, one glorious morning, the bud opened to reveal a beautiful blue flower. The prisoner, moved by this gift, scratched out his previous words and above them wrote, “God cares.”

Are you lonely? Do you have a hard time making friends because you’re shy? Do you stay away from parties because you never know what to say or how to act? Or have you lost someone precious to you, and there doesn’t seem to be anything that can fill the hole in your heart?

Loneliness might be a new experience for you. Maybe you have always been popular, but now all your friends have died or moved away, leaving you surprised at how quiet your life has gotten. Maybe there have been just one or two important people in your life, and now that they’re gone you feel lost, unsure of what to do next. Or perhaps you and loneliness go back a long way together. Maybe you were an only child who didn’t have many opportunities to spend time with other kids. Maybe you couldn’t think fast, or weren’t very coordinated, so you watched other kids play games instead of participating. Or maybe you have always been interested in different things than other people are, so you find little to talk about with your coworkers during coffee break.

The effects of loneliness can be devastating. All the way back in the Garden of Eden, God said that being alone was not a good thing. Loneliness can play tricks with your mind. When you are alone, every strange sound in the night can be frightening. When you are alone, problems can seem overwhelming because you have no one to turn to for advice or ask for help. Worst of all, when you are alone you start to wonder if anyone loves you.

In his book “The Cocktail Party”, T. S. Elliot describes three people waiting in a room. Each has recently died; each has been sentenced to hell. And so they sit, waiting for the devil to come and escort them to their fate. With nothing else to do, each man talks—but only to himself. No one pays any attention to what the others are saying; each is totally focused on his own misery. As time drags endlessly on, it slowly dawns on them that the devil won’t be coming to lead them someplace worse. They are already in hell, because each of them is utterly alone.

The Bible speaks of hell as a place of intense, unending suffering. But there is no pain worse than the pain of loneliness. We were created to love, and you cannot love or be loved when you’re alone. One good definition of hell is this: hell is where you are completely alone.

You may think that you know what loneliness is like, but I assure you that no matter how much you may have suffered, you have never been truly alone. Every human being lives in the warmth of God’s love. It is because of God’s action that you have recovered from the times you were sick or injured. It is because of God’s influence that you have known the love of family and friends. Because God is at work all around you, there are beautiful things to look at, soothing things to listen to, wonderful things to touch and smell and taste.

You are not truly alone at any point in your life, because you live in the world God made and loves. Earth is like a garden, and God works in His garden every day creating and nurturing life. No human being, not even an unbeliever, is truly alone because God is constantly at work all around us.

But there is one place God stays away from; His loving presence is not felt in hell. Hell is the place set apart for those who reject God’s love. The only place you can experience absolute loneliness is hell—and the horror of that loneliness is compounded by the knowledge that there will never be an end to it.

No one has a better understanding of loneliness than Jesus. In fact, His whole reason in coming among us to suffer and die was to shield you from loneliness. You and I are failures—we were created to love unselfishly, yet much of the time we get so wrapped up in loving ourselves that we fail to love others the way God expects. Because of this, we don’t deserve God’s love or care; what we deserve is hell, being separated from God and everyone else forever. For we who spend our days being self-absorbed, this is a fitting punishment indeed.

But loneliness is awful. In fact, loneliness is an alien concept to our loving God. From eternity, He has been Three in One—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Because of this, God has never experienced loneliness—not until the cross. It was while on the cross that Jesus experienced loneliness for the first and only time. It was on the cross that Jesus suffered the hell of being truly alone, as He showed when He cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34) During those terrible hours on Mount Calvary, the Son of God suffered the loneliness of hell, and He did it for you—He suffered your punishment from God to spare you from ever experiencing it for yourself.

Are you lonely? In spite of how you feel, I can assure you that you are not alone. Jesus said, I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends (Revelation 3:20). Jesus is waiting to be part of your life! He knows what it is to feel lonely—Jesus understands the horrors of loneliness better than anyone.

Ask Jesus, and He will ease your loneliness. He can open your eyes to see how much you are not alone. He has given doctors to care for you in sickness. He has provided postal workers to bring you mail, fire fighters to protect your home, electricity to bring you light during the darkness of night. Through television, radio and the Internet, He permits friendly faces and warm voices to enter your home any time you want.

Jesus can also help you connect with others. He can give you the courage to speak with strangers; I know, because I used to be very shy until I asked the Lord to help me overcome it. Jesus takes pleasure in mending fences; He would love to help you write a letter to someone lost to you because of a stupid fight, a letter offering a sincere apology and an invitation to rekindle your old friendship.

Jesus can draw you out of yourself. He has promised eternal life in heaven for all who die believing in Him, so if you have lost a loved one to death, there is no reason to be sad. That person is rejoicing in heaven, and when the Savior summons you from this life, the two of you will be reunited in paradise! Since your loved one is living in eternal joy, why are you sad? Is it because you’re feeling sorry for yourself, having to live without that person? Jesus can help you! He created you to love others every day of your life. Start showing love again by volunteering your time to a charity. Visit patients in a hospital or residents in a nursing home. By relieving the loneliness of others, you will be a channel for the love of Christ and your life will be filled with companionship.

Most importantly, Jesus gives you the fellowship of the church. One of the reasons we gather in these places is to support and love each other. Do you feel alone? Go to church! Do you feel as if no one understands you? Among the members of Christ’s house, you are understood—like you, we are all sinners struggling to find our way, led by the Master and supported by each other. Do you feel as if no one shares your interests or priorities? In the fellowship of believers, we all have several things in common—a love for God, a desire to know more about Him, and a passion to be close to Him forever. Among us, you are not an outsider—you are a fellow member of the body of Christ, a brother or sister of our Savior, a brother or sister to me and to the people seated around you. You are not alone—you belong to the largest, most widespread family in the world!

Jesus made a wonderful promise to those who love Him—I am with you always. With Jesus in your life, you will never be alone.