Loneliness

“And the Lord God said, ‘ It is not good that the man should be alone’” Genesis 2:18

The first thing that the Lord said that was not good in the creation of the world was loneliness.

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That dark pit of aching deep within yourself

It lurks behind your sternum in the black of night

Banging on the walls of your ribs, and hammering against your soul

Begging to be released.

And so, it spills fourth

It comes in a parade of whispered words, and muffled tears

A speech that is made to the air

The soliloquy of your outpouring emotion seems to linger between yourself and the walls that encapsulate you.

The murmured speech is sometimes audible, as if an invisible audience were listening in from some undiscovered location.

Other times it’s internalized, an unquenchable barrage of thought and emotions that monopolize your mind.

And the realization occurs;

‘Why bother to speak out loud at all, when there’s no one there to hear?’

There’s no ears to recognize the sorrow in your voice

There’s no eyes to see your pain

No arms to hug, or hands to administer the comfort of a touch

No mouth or mind to speak comfort or love back into your life

There’s you and space;

an area that seems to be quickly consumed in your own desolation.

A cycle of urgently yearning for companionship, and in finding none, retreating into oneself more; and attempting to harness your longing through logic and self comforts.

In this desperation, in these moments of utter lowliness; you turn to what you know is there.

You pray fervently; a desire to understand the reasoning behind the current application of your life.

You admit to yourself that it’s difficult to continue to strive, and push fourth,

Your daily life is impeded by a large unseen ball and chain of a hidden feelings.

It’s a struggle to want to fight for friendships and to pursue relationships, as the memories of old friends and missed loved ones loiter in your memories.

When the good times that precede the bad are also the cause of it, a trepidation to continue occurs, and the innate desire to fight dwindles into decline.

Ultimately, perseverance can be negated in favor of a safety net;

one that you admit may be suffocating, but, you know it well.

Yet, God does not relent in our hopelessness,

and through his power the urging to pray stands strong,

The desire to crawl back into the lap of my Lord,

And rest my brokenness within his careful, faithful and loving hands

To surrender all that I am to Him, who cares abundantly for me

And to know within the depths of my being that despite any current season of sorrow, his plan and purpose for me will include joy.

I content myself to follow after the biblical examples set before me;

To fight like Jacob, holding onto the Lord until he promises blessing,

To remain steady like Hannah in the longevity of a withheld blessing

To remain hopeful like Paul in the midst of an isolating incarceration.

To believe that God’s goodness abounds; no matter what my life experience may declare.

To rest in the belief that every trial and tribulation he allows one to encounter is a preparation for a future unknown,

And to trust that the future that God has for me, despite the path it may take along the way, is a beautiful destiny.

And in this, a hope emerges, enough to get through the night and onto the sunlight that declares the introduction of a new day.

A day that the Lord has made; prepared and planned before the creation of the world.

And, the Lord’s plan will prevail, upon this I rest my soul.