Every so often, I link up with Lisa-Jo Baker’s Five Minute Friday, a community of writers who get together and write for five minutes and five minutes ONLY on the prompt for the week. No editing…no planning…no corrections. Just love for the written word and the satisfaction of having written. I’m linking up there today, writing about the word lonely.
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Loneliness. It is a cruel, deceptively sneaky villain. With a modus operandi custom-made for each victim, it knows just how and when to plot its attack.
For some, the realization of loneliness comes late at night, as memories of the day flood the mind and sleep stays far away. For others, like me, it is that, certainly. But it is also a daily realization – a reminder, day after day, that I was created for relationships – for sharing of life – for the side-by-side and face-to-face interactions of friends. It is a reminder that while I was made for that, while I need that to live life in this world, I am floating through, making do without it.
Without it, and under the full weight of loneliness’ barrage, I am only surviving.
And wasn’t I created for more? Wasn’t I created for more than survival? I connect with others – if it can be called that – through various social media. At times, my Twitter and Facebook feeds are more like eavesdropping than interacting. More like voyeurism than friendship. More like wishful thinking than reality.
And so late at night, when loneliness comes calling and I should be sleeping, I speak to my dearest, closest friend.
And softly, sweetly, compassionately, after listening to all my complaints and questions, Jesus replies, “You have me. You always have me, and I am here.”
And that….that reassurance? It doesn’t negate my makeup. It doesn’t change what I was made to need……but somehow the loneliness is more bearable with the remembrance that I was never alone in the first place.
