For those who receive and/or read this blog, may I first say: I am sorry that I am not a consistent "blogger." I put that word in quotation marks because I really don't think it fits me. Sometimes, I just want to type instead of write and it makes sense for other people to be loved by my words or learn from my mistakes. So here I am.
Have you ever been alone? Not sitting at home alone, on the couch, with the dog, like I am tonight. I mean in your gut. Have you ever been alone in the depth of yourself? It is different than being alone at home or in your car or even eating at a table by yourself at Qdoba on your break off of work.
Being alone in your gut is one of the worst feelings ever. Sadly, it seems to be a feeling that has haunted me lately, that has gripped my chest and has sucked life from it.
(Before I explain further, it seems necessary to mention that I don't mean single. There seem to be a few of you out there in this world that want me to get married next week or something, and that isn't what I am talking about. Being single is wonderful and I am sure being married is wonderful, too. I would like to try it someday, if God thinks it best, but that is not what this blog is about.)
And so I continue. Being alone is something you feel in your mind, your heart and your body. I think that being alone hurts most for those who have known what it means to not be alone. If being alone was how I always felt, maybe I wouldn't know the difference. However, since I have experienced many moments when things and people comfort, care for, satisfy, console and befriend me, the moments of being alone seem to be strikingly different.
I think this feeling of alone is something real - something that has always gripped me. And, at least today, I am knowing it exists... again. This entry is titled, "Getting lost only to find... I've been this way before." I call it this because I remembered discovering this feeling of being alone and empty some time ago. Then and today, though, I realize(d) that: Without Christ, I really am alone, despite how the world "satisfies" me.
I think we were all born with a soul-sucking feeling of alone, deep in us, in this world. (Don't be upset with God for allowing this, either. He did because He loves us, and He did so we could seek a true communion with Him, the One with whom we are never alone, the One whom we were created by and for.)
I feel this aloneness in my gut when friends forget me, people let me down, my family says something and I realize they don't know me and when I sit at home alone. I feel this way now because I have been on a path that I traveled before that begs other things and people to meet my deep gut needs: the needs to have a Home, a Family, Love and close Friends. I desperately need these things. And, living the life I live, I have all of them: a home, a family, love and close friends. However, not really. That is the danger of my home, family, love and close friends. In them, I find comfort and satisfaction and a feeling of not being alone. Only when they disappoint me (which it seems like they have and always do) do I remember that they are not my real Home, Family, Love and close Friends. Only then does the scenery of my heart look familiar and only then do I realize that I've passed this way before.
Maybe today will be the last day on this path. Maybe I can move on from here and move on to new places where God has new things to teach me and new parts of Him that I haven't yet met. That would be a good thing. It would be a wonderful thing: to find my Home, Family, Love and close Friend in Christ and in His love. Then, maybe - just maybe - I could never feel alone, never be alone. I could always turn to my soul's Match for my deepest needs. I could quit being a leech sucking to the things in this world that I think will bring comfort and companionship. I could turn my back on the disappointment in this world, my friends, my family, my schedule, my reputation as I turn to face the One who will truly one day welcome me Home, hold me in His arms and remind me, that because of His Love, the One named Love, I have never really been alone. Instead, I was simply traveling an old worn out path of clinging to the world when He was calling me, inviting me, welcoming me... all along.
God, may we never cling to this world. We have seen it disappoint us when even the best of the best at the store, on the shelf or in our hand hasn't satisfied our hearts. We have been hurt by it when we have been forgotten, left out, abandoned and neglected... even by those we completely trusted. So, may we always cling to You. May we delight in You, rest in You and seek You with all we have and are. May we find our Home, Family, Love and close Friend in You, where you always intended us to be satisfied... all along.
In Jesus' Name,
Amen.
