Are You Lonely Tonight?

“I never knew lonely could be so blue, I never knew lonely could tear you in two, I never loved someone like I love you, I never knew lonely til you.” – Vince Gill

The stars come out when the sky grows dark. I forget this sometimes in the summer because the days are so long I don’t experience true darkness. I usually crawl into bed as dusk settles over the house and close my eyes as I prepare for the inevitabilities tomorrow will bring. But there are times when the sadness’s of the day are not ready to retire. My eyes won’t close, and I can’t find rest. There is an ache that defies definition—an ache that sets my mind to wandering for a remedy.

Jesus once said, “Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” (Matthew 6:34) So what does one do when the trouble of the day doesn’t want to end?

No one wants to be lonely. Loneliness feels like a curse. If we aren’t lonely today, we fear that we will be lonely in the future. When we open our hearts to love other people, we open the door to the possibility of loneliness. Sometimes the people we love don’t love us back. Other times they love us for a while and then walk away. Worst of all, we may grow to an age where everyone we love has died. It is usually about this age that we discover sleep is no longer a friend. That is when we learn the true meaning of darkness. Then, not even the light from a picture window will brighten our hearts.

“O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.” Psalm 22:2

I ponder loneliness when I stand in my front yard at 2:00am. The solitary whistle of the train as it rattles down the tracks reminds me I am not the only one awake, but I still feel alone. I look up into the heavens to find my favorite constellations. There is comfort in the sameness of the stars. I say, “There you are” and I smile. The stars never disappoint me. They don’t say unkind words. They don’t neglect or ignore me. The nature of their work is to shine light into the darkness and that is what they keep on doing. Sometimes they peek through fluffy clouds and other times they are completely obscured by rain. But I know they are there and their faithfulness comforts me. We all need something faithful to anchor our hearts to when we ache.

Have you ever stood in the wreckage of horrible circumstances and wondered what happened? Have you cursed the gods for allowing such all-encompassing annihilation? Have you cried, like Job, “He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone, and my hope has he pulled up like a tree” (Job 19:10)? The loneliness of those moments surpasses anything approaching manageable. These “unfixable and uncontrollable moments” (Zack Eswine) wring the sorrow from our brows. These moments solidify the knowledge that we truly have no control over the trajectory of our lives. We grasp for something—anything to steady us. We just need something solid to grasp. Something faithful—more faithful than even the stars.

“Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.” Isaiah 11:5

Though we cannot see him with our eyes, He is real. Though we cannot smell Him with our nose, He exists. Though we cannot touch him with our hands, He is authentic. Jesus, the lamb of God who was sent to take away the sin of the world, is our faithful Savior. If we trust in Him, He will deliver us.

I have recently been learning from a friend what it means to follow Jesus. Yes, sometimes I forget. Pain has a way of obscuring the truth. Especially if I turn to religiosity and ritual rather than to the personhood of Christ. I collapse into the temptation to believe He is an uncaring monster who wishes me harm rather than a man who took my sin and was tortured to death so that I might enter the most joyful relationship known to mankind.

In His book, “Sensing Jesus”, Zack Eswine reminds me that “Jesus doesn’t see victory in this world the way I wish he would.” These words comfort me because they remind me that I am not God. I am not omniscient or omnipresent. I am just Margaret. And this comforts me because it takes all the pressure off performing tasks I don’t feel capable of completing. If I allow God to be God and myself to be me, I can just relax. I can throw up my hands and cry out in pain, “God, I can’t figure this out. I need you to help me.” Or I can simply weep. And in those moments of perplexing pain I have experienced the hand of grace as it catches me—not unlike a little bird with a broken wing—and whispers to me, “Margaret, I am here. You are precious in my sight. I love you and I will save you.”

Zack describes it this way. “There is a kind of power that Jesus gives. It goes where other kinds of power will not. It does what other kinds of power cannot.” But one cannot experience it until we fully surrender to Him. We must relinquish control of our lives. Besides, we don’t actually have control anyway. And if you think you do, just wait until the doctor says, “Stage 4 pancreatic cancer”.

I sat in the unrelenting loneliness of pain last week. I cried out to God and He answered me. On this occasion it was to remind me that I have an old pair of roller skates in the basement that I haven’t used in several years. I brushed off the dust and laced them up. Then I started to glide up and down the street in front of my house—just like I did when I was 12. We don’t have any sidewalks so I had to skate in the street. I waved at the cars that drove by and talked to the neighborhood children who were riding bikes and scooters. And I laughed at the looks of the people driving past as they gawked at me or simply smiled. Because how often does one see a 44 year old woman rolling around on white roller derby skates and waving her arms? I suppose some will think this is a strange response to pain but my loneliness definitely dissipated. I found laughter and happiness, but I also found deep joy. Because Jesus was roller skating with me. I can’t remember the last time I felt so happy and carefree.