My little
boy sat facing the back of the couch. His head resting on his crossed
arms. He stared out the window. His little head moved from left to right
as he watched two neighbor boys race past on bikes, laughing at a
shared joke.
I watched my second-grade-son from the
kitchen door, drying my hands with a dishtowel. My shoulders drooped as
Josh took a deep breath and let it out in a despairing sigh. Mirroring
his sadness, my throat tightened and hot tears burned my eyes. Throwing
the dishtowel into the sink, I quietly stepped to the couch and slipped
down next to him. Without saying a word, I scooped him into my lap and
enveloped his little frame with my arms.
His face nuzzled mine and our tears mixed together. I could almost feel the wishing and hoping pulse through his small body: Will they stop by my house? Will they invite me to play? A smothered sob escaped from my little boy who was trying valiantly to be "big."
Ever since our move to North Carolina earlier
in the year, Joshua had trouble making friends. The playgroups were
established, and my shy son was painfully on the outside. His little
brothers were good companions at home, but that didn't replace
friendships at school or in the neighborhood.
The loneliness was oppressive, and I felt it
too. In fact, that period of my life was one of my darkest times. We all
left life-long friends when we moved. Those friendships had been born
of common experiences, and years spent together. They were effortless.
Now we faced unknown territory, not just
geographically, but culturally and socially. This was a new world to us,
and Josh felt it as painfully as I did. And yet, during that time, we
all learned some things about God and ourselves that we wouldn't have
learned had we stayed in Phoenix.
Although loneliness is painful, it isn't
always a bad place to be for a time. C.S. Lewis said, "God whispers to
us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our
pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."
God definitely spoke to us in our loneliness.
And I started wondering if perhaps there are times when God allows
loneliness into our lives as an invitation to pursue Him as our closest
friend. When our friends have left us, or we have left them, God reveals
His presence in new ways. Tim Hansel, author of Through the Wilderness of Loneliness
writes, "Loneliness is not a time of abandonment...it just feels that
way. It's actually a time of encounter at new levels with the only One
who can fill that empty place in our hearts."
God longs to fill our hearts with Himself.
Yet we often try to fill the desires of our hearts with the things of
this world. Yet those attempts to find replacements for God are fleeting
and insubstantial, leaving us even lonelier than before.
As you or your child face a time of
loneliness, take this opportunity to look to Jesus as a best friend.
Jesus Himself calls us friends in John 15:15, "I no longer call you
servants, because a servant does not know his master's business.
Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from
my Father I have made known to you" (NIV).
Even though we were designed for community,
God has a purpose for loneliness. If we can learn from it, rather than
resent it, I believe we'll find a life-long Friend who'll never leave us
lonely.
Dear
Lord, thank You being a friend who will never leave me. Sometimes the
loneliness is overwhelming. Please be real to me today. I want to learn
from this time of loneliness rather than resent it. In Jesus' Name,
Amen.(Glynnis Whitwer)
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