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- A Theology of Humor by Cheryl Taylor
- Ministering With Humor by Stephanie Nance
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Turning Loneliness Into Aloneness
Enrichment Journal Fall 1999
I remember when I first dared to ask my mother, "Mom, you live such a lonely life. Don’t you ever want to divorce Dad?"
She paused for a minute, obviously taken off guard by the bluntness of her young daughter’s question. But then she responded very deliberately and lovingly. "Sure, Jeanne, I have for a long time. But I won’t."
My mom, although not a Christian, knew the serious consequences of allowing loneliness—even the most aching loneliness—to make decisions in her life. Years later, after she had accepted Christ, I thanked her for her unselfish handling of her loneliness. She certainly could have bailed out. After all, for years my father had done very little emotional need-meeting. He was a poor listener. The only times I remember him being much of a companion to my mother was when he was drunk. My mom knew that a woman of integrity had to deal with the crippling pain of extended loneliness. A woman either handles loneliness or loneliness handles her.
Many years have passed since that memorable conversation with my mom in our kitchen. As a pastor’s wife and woman in the ministry for nearly three decades, I understand the paralyzing impact of loneliness like I never dreamed possible. And I have had to develop my own means of coping with loneliness. Apart from that, I question that my personal life and ministry would be what the Lord has allowed it to become.
Some might find it difficult to believe that loneliness could be a factor in my life. After all, you might think, she has a great husband, incredible sons, and a ministry with hundreds of teenagers who think the world of her. Besides that, she is always smiling or laughing.
That is all true, but for me, happiness has never been an emotion, but rather, a choice. Proverbs 4:23 cautions, "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life."* I have had to "guard my heart" and face loneliness at some of the most unlikely times.
A few hours ago I had nearly 100 excited teenagers crowded into our medium-sized home for dinner. We had a great time, complete with a clogged toilet that overflowed and left 2 inches of water on my bathroom floor. Yet when the house cleared, and I had cleaned up and finally crashed on the couch at 2 a.m., I felt the aching sensation of loneliness deep inside. It is not a sensation unfamiliar to me. It can come right after I have shared with a youth convention of 5,000 energetic teenagers or when I am alone in my laundry room, trying to separate the colors from the whites. Penetrating loneliness can find all of us; and if allowed, it can quickly wrap its tentacles of self-pity and depression around our hearts in a very paralyzing fashion. How do I handle loneliness? Allow me to share a few simple principles to turn loneliness into aloneness.
Step #1—Learn To Recognize Loneliness As God’s Cry For Friendship Time With You
Have you ever stopped to realize that our Heavenly Father must experience loneliness too? After all, we are created in His image. Far too often we use Him more than love Him. We allow Him to become more of a business associate than a Father. I have come to recognize feelings of loneliness as the Father’s reminder that He has feelings too, and that He misses me. It has been said, "Loneliness becomes my friend when it forces me to draw companionship from the living God that I would otherwise like to draw from another human being." If I recognize the purpose behind pain, I can more easily respond correctly to it.
Step #2—Talk Back To Your Emotions Rather Than Letting Your Emotions Talk To You
That’s what King David was doing in Psalm 42:5. He was making his will talk back to his emotions. Second Corinthians 10:5 gives us the simple directive that makes this possible: "Take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ."
Counselors frequently talk about the importance of our mental self-talk. To be victorious over any emotional struggle, we need to train our self-talk to conform to the truth of God’s Word, no matter what we feel or do not feel. Like King David, we make our will talk back to our emotions. Scribbled in one of my first Bibles is a thought the Lord gave me in prayer: "Right choices eventually bring right emotions." I often remind myself and those I love that we do not choose our future. Rather, we choose our habits and our habits determine our future.
Step #3—Consciously Choose To Convert Loneliness Into Aloneness
Loneliness is that aching, depressing emotion of isolation, but aloneness is a positive experience. Loneliness is depressing, demotivational, self-centered, spiritually debilitating, and takes no emotional energy to create. Aloneness is peaceful, motivational, other-centered, spiritually positive, and takes a choice of my will to create. The two most important words in step three are, "I choose." Far too many of us are content with shallow levels of intimacy with the Lord because we allow loneliness to cripple us rather than choosing to press through the depression and neutrality. It takes work to meditate on the Scriptures when you have no emotional energy. It takes work to control negative self-talk when feeling sorry for yourself is so easy. Those choices genuinely convert loneliness into aloneness allowing it to become a platform for deepened, authentic intimacy with the Lord.
Step #4—Give Away To Others The Emotions You Most Desire
Galatians 6:7 is a scriptural principle. If I give away to others the emotions I most need and desire, God is responsible to see that my needs are also met. Sometimes He meets my emotional needs almost instantaneously as I am reaching out to the other person. Other times the process is slower. God will be no man’s debtor. If I take care of others, the Lord will always take care of me.
As a woman involved in ministry, I can almost guarantee that you will have the opportunity to use these principles sooner than you wish. But in truth, some of those painful, isolating times of loneliness will help make you a woman in the ministry who has something inside to give to others.
There is a story by Marjorie Williams that depicts this truth. It’s called The Velveteen Rabbit. In one passage the toy rabbit and the toy horse are talking to each other. "What is real?" asked the stuffed rabbit to the stuffed horse. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn’t how you are made," said the stuffed horse. "It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the stuffed rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the stuffed horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are real, though, you don’t mind so much."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn’t happen all at once," said the stuffed horse. "You become real. It takes a long time and a lot of pain. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or who have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and are very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all because once you are real, you can’t ever be ugly…except to people who don’t really understand."
So you want to impact someone’s life for eternity. Then welcome to the Velveteen Rabbit Club. You will often struggle as you convert loneliness into aloneness, and you won’t do it if you break easily. But the reward is immense. In a world of facades, you will be real. You will have the inward beauty of one who has been with Jesus.
*All Scriptures are from the New International Version.
