For a person who has always felt most at peace when in solitude, it was quite disconcerting to see loneliness settle in. With this loneliness came the desire to fill it. Acting on impulse, this gaping hole was easily filled with things that soon became detrimental.
Sitting back I began to observe this phenomenon all around me. It seemed like this world was filled with people who in their loneliness reached out for anything that would give them happiness, attention, satisfaction, or love. And yet this happiness was always so fleeting. Lovers leave, money finishes, the party ends, and night becomes morning. The high and the drunken stupor ends in pain when the sobriety of the morning hits.
Drinking away sorrows– ends in alcoholism, just as fast as chasing highs leads to addiction. The trouble never stops and thus neither does your dependence. The churchgoer ridicules the drunkard for his bottle, and the drunkard ridicules the churchgoer for his hypocrisy. Yet are they so different? Both with longings, desires, hopes, and failures.
Then there is that woman next door; who’s girlhood days have passed as she looks in the future expecting nothing but more of the same. She is lonely, in ‘need’ of a man. She boasts in her aloneness while grooming herself to perfection in hopes of catching the eye of the next man who looks her way.
Meanwhile she is oblivious to the fact that the old mamas at church who tell her that her biological clock has ‘tocked’ are living in misery in their own loveless marriages. These old mamas have their husband in bed every night, but the space in between them lies cold. They were a Ms. and lonely, but now they are Mrs. Lonely. So they have more kids, join clubs, or support groups, and throw themselves in every work their hand finds—hoping to convince themselves that they are… “fulfilled.”
And finally there is that boy who looks like a man. He talks like a man, walks like a man, and lusts like a man. Yet when he is alone, his thoughts are that of a boy. He fights those feelings of inadequacy and he craves power over his own life and over his future.
We all go through life stumbling around, picking ourselves up, and developing our own coping mechanisms for loneliness, failure, and lust. We keep seeking, but not many find.
To the woman who is no longer a girl, and to the boy fighting to be a man: You can find a balm for your hurt and relief from your longing. But only at the foot of the cross.
I have found only one place where it’s okay to be lonely and broken, confused or hurting. It’s okay to be lost and discouraged, weak and weary. Just come with your baggage and your sins, and lay down at the feet of Jesus. The walk of faith is not easy, and failure is guaranteed. But this time, when you fall, Christ Himself will pick you up.
gracehopelove 