Loneliness 2: Is it just me?

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are-- yet was without sin. Hebrew 4:14

When I was a kid I got hit in the face with a baseball bat and lost my top left tooth and chipped a few others. I happened to be in the wrong place when a little league teammate of mine was in the "on deck" circle getting ready for his at bat. It was obviously an impressionable experience for me. When I returned from thhospitalol my dad gave me something to tell me how proud he was of me. It was a button with a picture of "hero" sandwich on it and the letters HERO across the top. I felt special and unique in a really good way, thanks to my dad's encouragement. But sometimes I feel that same sort of special and unique in bad ways. I feel like I uniquely deal with certain moral, spiritual or relational struggles in ways that others wouldn't or couldn't identify.

It can be that way with loneliness can't it? We feel all alone in our loneliness. Some wives say, no one could ever understand how emotionally separated my husband and I are. Others say I'm so socially awkward that I will never have a true friendship. Some kids say, my relationship with my parents is so distant that no one wounderstandndertsand. And these pent-up feelings lead to emotional turmoil in the simplest form and depression or suicide in more extreme cases. Some feel that no one could be as isolated or separated or alone as they are. They feel alone in their loneliness.

But thanks to Christ, I know that such thoughts are not true. Christ himself in his humanity experienced loneliness, forsakenness, betrayal and worse. And Scripture tells us that, “no temptation has seized [us] except what is common to man (1 Cor 10:13)." So others feel the same way. Loneliness, separation, and isolation bring deep feelings of pain, but we aren't alone in dealing with these feelings.

Do you struggle with loneliness? Find comfort in sharing your feelings with Christ, who understands. Pray that God would allow you to connect with othempathize empathisize with you.