Recently I was in a conversation with two other women---
one young--30's--single-never married--on a career path--
one late--70's--widowed--for more than 20 years --a mother and wife and now grandmother as her chosen path
and me---mid 60's--divorced---retired from my career-would like to be a writer when I grow up-once a wife--and still a mother and grandmother--a seeker of truth as my path
Three women---three stages of life--all single---very different stories.
We spent about an hour talking and finally I asked both of them the same question-
"Are you lonely?"
I was not surprised by my older friends' reply---"Yes" after all these years--she is still lonely.
The young friend---quietly told us that her mother had asked her the same thing and she was surprised by the question--but then began to think it over and how she fills her days---non-stop activity from early until late--when she falls in the bed exhausted from the day's activities. She said when she started thinking this over, she realized that the times she comes home and sits in front of the television --she is lonely and perhaps this was the reason her days were so filled with activity. She was lonely.
Three women--three different life stories--three different life stages--but we all expressed the same thing---there are times we are lonely.
I am lonely, but I am beginning to once again fill my days with activities and service and grands--but when I come home to an empty apartment--I am lonely. The weekends can seem to be an eternity. I remember the time that weekends flew by--there was never enough hours in them--I was not alone then--
There have been times in my life--even when in a relationship--that I was profoundly lonely. So what will drive this lonely feeling away--what will fill that void? God has been pointing out the answer to me recently. He created us to be in community-but the most important relationship in our community is that with Him. I strongly believe the answer is a stream of conscious communication with Him---but I have not achieved that level of intimacy---So for now--I am still lonely at times--but I am still seeking the answer--
"Turn to me, and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted."
Psalm 25:16
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After writing the above, I saw this devotional by Charles Spurgeon--perhaps this is the answer:
Your Lord is very jealous of your love, O believer. Did he choose you? He cannot bear that you should choose another. Did he buy you with his own blood? He cannot endure that you should think that you are your own, or that you belong to this world. He loved you with such a love that he would not stop in heaven without you; he would sooner die than you should perish, and he cannot endure that anything should stand between your heart's love and himself. He is very jealous of your trust. He will not permit you to trust in an arm of flesh. He cannot bear that you should hew out broken cisterns, when the overflowing fountain is always free to you. When we lean upon him, he is glad, but when we transfer our dependence to another, when we rely upon our own wisdom, or the wisdom of a friend-worst of all, when we trust in any works of our own, he is displeased, and will chasten us that he may bring us to himself. He is also very jealous of our company. There should be no one with whom we converse so much as with Jesus. To abide in him only, this is true love; but to commune with the world, to find sufficient solace in our carnal comforts, to prefer even the society of our fellow Christians to secret intercourse with him, this is grievous to our jealous Lord. He would fain have us abide in him, and enjoy constant fellowship with himself; and many of the trials which he sends us are for the purpose of weaning our hearts from the creature, and fixing them more closely upon himself. Let this jealousy which would keep us near to Christ be also a comfort to us, for if he loves us so much as to care thus about our love we may be sure that he will suffer nothing to harm us, and will protect us from all our enemies. Oh that we may have grace this day to keep our hearts in sacred chastity for our Beloved alone, with sacred jealousy shutting our eyes to all the fascinations of the world!
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