Never Alone: Unpack Loneliness and Revitalize Your HeartSample

Devotional

Let’s talk about it. If you are looking for inspiring words about focusing on the coming rainbow after hardship, this isn’t that kind of first day, at least not initially. We have some hard things to get through first, friend. We will get right into the thick of being uncomfortable, opening our hearts to our struggles. Why? It’s the only way to make it to the other side.

This is the side where hope and goodness reign supreme. Before you can have the bright and pretty of the rainbow you are so unapologetically anticipating, it’s important to sit in and work through the dark to get there. And loneliness is dark. It’s an ugly and uncomfortable feeling that can bring the deepest despair and unbearable heartache. Staying in that space is painful, but you can't move forward through it without processing the “why” of it.

How we use our personal struggles and trials is everything. Those who avoid addressing the underlying reasons for loneliness and box it up always find that box overflowing later. The mess it leaves after being hidden for so long is often worse than when it began, especially as it spills all over your life.

I will tell you that despite how hard it is to walk that path of raw processing and finding your healthy methods to cope, there is always beauty in the everlasting truth that you can work through it. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us,” Romans 8:18 (ESV) tells us.

In 1674, English naturalist John Ray compiled a glossary of infrequently used words. He included loneliness, which he defined as being “far from neighbours.” As a modern society, we have researched the clinical implications of loneliness since the 1980s. A published article in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry suggested it was an official disease, saying, “The pathological loneliness has its roots in a medical model consisting of a host, an agent, and an environment and is thus, a disease.” Professionals believe that loneliness consists of a host, agent, and environment and is therefore considered a disease.

As we begin our study through Ruth in the readings, examine your own loneliness experience. Walk in the shoes of both Ruth and Naomi and look for the ways your journey is so much like theirs all those years ago. God is calling out to us, even in our hardest moments.