Feeling alone or lonely is quite common in this day and age. Even though most of us are connected through social media platforms, computers, and smartphones, we are quite a lonely generation. If you are feeling alone or lonely, know that you are not alone.
Sometimes through our loneliness, we are brought closer to God, and it deepens our relationship with Him. We are never truly alone because God is always with us, though this can be hard to believe and apply at times.
The Feeling of Loneliness
Loneliness is a word that most Christians do not want to talk about. As soon as you say you are lonely, other Christians immediately view that there is something wrong with you.
Despite our loneliness and feelings of being alone, God is still right there beside us. Paul knew what it felt like to be lonely and abandoned.
In 2 Timothy 4:16-17, he writes to Timothy and says, “At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them. But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed, and all the Gentiles might hear it. And I was delivered from the lion’s mouth.”
Everyone had deserted Paul, yet the Lord remained by His side. In the same way, God remains at our side in every circumstance, struggle, and situation. Through the tears, through the heartache, and through the pain, God never leaves us.
No matter why you are feeling alone and lonely, it hurts. The pain of feeling alone and lonely eats away at our hearts and can cause us to feel deep sadness and pain. Feeling alone and lonely has nothing to do with how many people are around you.
I have personally felt more alone in large groups rather than just being with a few people. In other words, some of our most lonely times can be when we are around tons of people. I grew up in a pretty large family as our local librarian used to call our family “a slew.”
I didn’t have 10 siblings or anything, but from our local librarian’s perspective, there were a lot of us. I have two older siblings, a dad and I had a mom, though she passed away many years ago. At the time, there were five of us in total, plus our Scottish-terrier beagle mix dog.
By all practical means, I should have never felt lonely. I had a mom, a dad, two sisters, and a dog, yet I was always lonely and felt alone. No matter how many events and activities we would do together, I always felt alone.
I felt alone because I felt like no one truly understood me. I know my parents loved me, but as you know, parents don’t have endless time to invest in their children, and as the youngest, I was often overlooked.
There were many times when I was told to “grow up” because I was acting too much like a kid, but it was because I was a kid. I was only seven years old when I was told to grow up by my mother and father.
Emphasis was placed on my older sister because of her health problems; therefore, my other older sister and I were often left in the trenches and in the pain of figuring out things by ourselves. As one can imagine, this can become an extremely lonely business.
I am very thankful God gave me my sister because we have been able to navigate life with each other, even through the dark days of family members dying, the strain of undergrad and grad school, as well as dealing with multiple health problems.
Even though my sister and I have been through so much together, there is still much that she does not understand about how I feel, and there is still much that I do not understand about how she feels.
This means that we can still feel alone and lonely around each other despite the fact that we are the best of friends and normally do everything together. Even though we are close, we still get lonely.
Is Feeling Lonely Okay?
Maybe you have felt this in your own life. You’re around people, even people you’re close to, yet you still feel alone, or you feel like people don’t truly understand you. Just like me, maybe your parents were concerned with another sibling, or maybe there was even favoritism.
Outside of family lines, maybe you feel alone because you’re the only one single in your friend group. You feel like you’re unlovable or that you will always be alone. Friend, do not let this discourage you.
I, too, am one of the only singles in my friend group, but it doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with us. Singleness is said to be a gift in the Bible (1 Corinthians 7:7).
Even though you may be lonely in your singleness does not mean that you are lonely because you are single. In other words, singleness does not automatically equate to loneliness.
By turning to God and leaning on Him, you can give all your feelings of loneliness over to Him. The fact that we feel alone does not mean we are actually alone. God is always with us no matter what our feelings tell us.
It is vital that we trust what our minds know rather than what our feelings tell us. Just because we feel something does not mean it is true. We have to rely on what we know as told to us in God’s Word.
In the Bible, we are told, “The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged” (Deuteronomy 31:8).
Psalm 23 also tells us that God will walk with us through every dark valley, and He will lead us beside quiet waters (Psalm 23:1-6). As we can see, we are never truly alone because God is with us. He never disappears or leaves us despite what our feelings tell us. He is always right there by our side.
A great quality I always saw in my mother was that she always knew she was never alone. She knew Christ as her Savior, and she knew that He would never leave her. I wish I could reflect the same security and awareness as my mother did, yet I still struggle with feelings of being alone and loneliness.
What Does This Mean
None of us are perfect, and we all need help sometimes. If you are feeling alone and lonely, give all of those feelings over to God and keep telling yourself that God is with you. After telling yourself that you are not alone and that God is with you, you will start to know it to be true.
It can take some time, yet we have to be consistent in reminding ourselves that we are never truly alone because God is with us always and forever.
A person may have friends, family, or a spouse during their life, but none of these individuals can truly be with you all the time, nor can they fully understand everything you are feeling or going through.
It’s not a lack on their part, but rather their own humanity. Only God knows how we feel and completely understands what we are going through. A person can have many friends, family members, and a spouse yet still feel alone.
This is because we all need Jesus, and only, He can fill the empty void inside us. Remind yourself today and every day forward that God is with you, and He will never forsake you (Hebrews 13:5).
For further reading:
What Does the Bible Say about Loneliness?
How Should Christians Deal with Loneliness?
How Does the Bible Help with My Loneliness?
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