Ever thought “I am quite alone – no-one understands me at all”  – even in  crowd we can be lonely!

Loneliness is awful – even the word “Lonely” sounds sad and desolate.

We can be lonely anywhere – work, home, surrounded by family and friends anywhere – no matter what we are doing or where we are.

A guy called Tim Hansel put it this way:-

“Loneliness is not the same as being alone. Loneliness is feeling alone…no matter how many people are around you. It is a feeling of being disconnected, unplugged, left out, isolated.”

Simply put – we can be in a crowd supposedly enjoying ourselves and still feeling desperately lonely.

Kendra Cherry puts it this way:-

“While common definitions of loneliness describe it as a state of solitude or being alone, loneliness is actually a state of mind. Loneliness causes people to feel empty, alone and unwanted.”

So what are some of the causes of loneliness?

Reading a research article by John Cacioppo, a University of Chicago psychologist, loneliness is strongly connected to genetics.

Other contributing factors according to Cacioppo can be moving to a new location, divorce, the death of someone significant in a person’s life, low self esteem and/or confidence. People who lack self esteem and confidence believe that they are unworthy of attention or regard of other people. This alone can lead to feelings of isolation and chronic loneliness.

According to Kendra Cherry and I have no doubt she is absolutely spot on; – Loneliness can sometimes lead to all sorts of troubles including, depression and suicide, heart disease and stroke, stress, decreased memory/learning loss, antisocial behaviour, poor decision making and even alcohol and drug abuse.

WOW!! and all through Loneliness. makes you think a bit eh? – I feel there are not too many people around who haven’t felt lonely at some stage of their lives.

So what can we do about loneliness? When I feel lonely, I go back to the source of my greatest help – the Bible. Through the Bible we can find amazing truths and promises. Promises that blow us away with their honesty and encouragement.

Jesus himself felt lonely – He knew what it was like to be all alone – even his best friends betrayed, disappointed him and left Him.  Of course the ultimate loneliness for Jesus was when he cried out from the cross “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Jesus endured absolute separation from God and why? Because he didn’t want any of us to know that same ultimate separation.

You know nothing escapes God’s attention. He sees the little accomplishments that no one else notices. He notes the things you do to please Him.

He also sees the things we do in private – He sees how we speak to people and how we treat people at work and at school.

He sees our mistakes that wreck our self esteem and blow our confidence to pieces. He sees all! – all of our loneliness, all of the times we are ‘left-out of the clique”, all of our family foibles and secrets.

Although that doesn’t make God the ultimate spectator! Far from it. When the action starts, God’s place is right next to you, fighting, protecting, guiding, comforting and encouraging –  YES and WATCHING!!

None of us need ever fight our battles alone and knowing that God has your back, allows us to look loneliness fair in the face, recognise it for what it is, acknowledge that Jesus was there before us, put our hands in His and move onward.

Jesus died to spare us the agony that He experienced and amazingly He still lives today and is so willing to help us solve the problem of our loneliness.