ALONE

This week I have been counseling with numerous people who see themselves as alone...but they not alone. Loneliness and its cousin abandonment are common emotional twins in today's culture. Some people may be physically alone in their homes as I am tonight. However, their fears, their pain, their unaccomplished dreams and emotionally unavailable family members create a devasting loneliness. These out of control thoughts dog them, hunt them, whisper and yell at them. People who suffer this deeply many times have an unresolved or unattended issue that has become one of the loudest skeletons in their emotional closet.

Loneliness is a place where I fall into from time to time myself. Loneliness has nothing to do with the absence of people but rather, loneliness has much more to do with the presence of unresolved issues that crowd into our lives. Times of loneliness come upon us (seemingly out of nowhere). Unresolved issues remind us of things we should have done, ought to have accomplished,the person we could have been or the person we will never be. My own reflective thinking has led me to believe that the loneliness and the frustration that comes from not addressing issues honestly comes from a condemning and confusing spirit that is not of God. Afterall, God wants us to be with Him...with others...in companionship with the very Spirit that cast the bright stars into the blackness of night and called the light good. The Spirit of the living God never asked isolating Thomas, "where have you been?" The Spirit of God in resurrected Jesus did not ask Peter, "You did not deny knowing me, did you?" To Mary, the closest negative thing that God could to say to her was, "Let go of me, Mary.." Mary may have thought in response to this statement, "Let go!..but why? I love you."

God wants people with a 'Mary tendency' to know that there is no way of holding onto the past. Holding onto the past is a certain way to enter into a hellish loneliness. People will isolate like Thomas did; people do live in denial of reality, like Peter did; people do look for the meaning of life in dead places, as Mary did. These are all tragic choices. In our aloneness we must remember that we are not alone...never alone. This posting may be more of a ramble and if so, I am sorry. But again, I am alone tonight. Why did I write?...to cast sounds into the quiet of my house by way of my keyboard? Probably. My bottom line for you is this, if you find yourself on what appears to be the loosing end of something--don't isolate. Further, don't deny the reality that is before you. Enjoy the posted song on my Facebook..I loved it tonight and I hope you do too. GN .