The Loneliness

“…What I feared most was loneliness. Not being alone, which I often find perfect and peaceful, but loneliness which makes me want to die, which makes me think I will die, which I will do anything to avoid feeling.” Lauren Winner from her book Still.

I handle pain like I do the drops on a roller coaster: I clench every muscle in my body as tight as possible and make myself as small as I can. They say when you’re in a car accident you incur less injury the more relaxed you are, the more tense you are the more in jury you do. Huh.

I realized I have been doing the same thing with the loneliness. I didn’t want to feel it. I think that’s an understandable response but not a healthy one, or one that will lead to healing and wholeness. My goal is to come out of this whole. I believe it’s possible, but not if I refuse to address all the feelings that come with this.

I too have found that I do enjoy my alone times, but I have been avoiding feeling the loneliness. I have clenched every muscle and curled up small to try and lessen the feeling and the impact. The pastor who officiated my wedding says, “the only way through the pain is through the pain.” I think this will probably be true of the loneliness. The only way to actually get through it, is to get through it.

Lauren concludes her chapter by saying, “Sit with the loneliness and ask what the loneliness has for you.”

It probably has different things for different people but I now think I may know at least one thing it has for me. It has a purpose to draw me to Jesus. To experience that when no one else is around, I am not alone. That I have significance, that I belong, and I have purpose and meaning – even or especially outside of a marriage or motherhood or whatever.

We can allow pain and loneliness to influence us to hide or avoid, sometimes in very bad ways; or we can allow it to give us a greater realization of who we were created to be.