I look for someone to come help me, but no one gives me a passing thought! No one will help me; no one cares a bit what happens to me. Psalm 142:4
I am going to look back on the time when I spent years feeling lonely. I am writing this in hopes that you will be encouraged. Living in loneliness is not how God wants us to live. As a matter of fact He wants us to live with inexpressible joy. This might sound impossible, right? Please take the time to hear me out. God brought me out of my pit of despair and I promise He can do the same for you!
Loneliness can cause us to feel like this is our reality and we can't help but wonder if this will ever change. The problem is we become consumed with this feeling and there seems to be no way of escaping it. Most people don't understand how you can feel lonely among a crowd of family or friends who love you. For me, deep down I knew I was loved, but I didn't feel loved which makes all the difference. So, you see I understand how you feel. For many years I was very withdrawn and would become anxious if two or more people came to my house.
To be honest I didn't feel like I really fit in anywhere. It was like I was an outsider looking in at all the happy people. The truth is when we are lonely we we wrap ourselves up in this feeling and also feel isolated from others. It is hard when you feel alone and isolated. This causes us to believe that no one understands. We begin to think if we tell someone how we really feel they might reject us thinking we aren't normal. Due to whatever led to this loneliness we feel like others just want us forget about it and move on. It might seem that is what others do. It's not that easy is it? Especially if this is something we had to face as a young child and didn't properly deal with the problem until later on in life.
Anyone who is caught up in their loneliness wants nothing more than to feel loved; an unconditional love is what we are looking for from our family and friends. Deep down we have believed the lies that no one understands us. If no one understands they can't help us. We believe that if anyone cared about us they should be able to help us. Now we don't believe that anyone even cares about us let alone love us. After feeling unloved we become so consumed in our loneliness we feel rejected and abandoned by others.
At this point we start building walls and deliberately push others away. These walls are our way of protecting ourselves when we can't seem to bear any more pain. The walls are actually our defense mechanism. We think if we keep people away there is no way they can hurt us. We believe that when we shut others out nothing can penetrate through these walls. Who are we kidding? Ourselves.
All we really want is just one person who will sit and listen to how we really feel. We long for someone to sympathize with us. Knowing someone else feels this way encourages us. We begin to realize that we are not alone in the way that we feel. Now we have someone who gets us. Our circumstances might be different, but the feelings are the same. Once we feel like someone understands we start to feel like someone really cares about us. When we feel cared about it will cause us to drop our guard and we will begin to feel loved.
God will bring that one person you so desperately need into your life. Before you know it He will bring a crowd of godly people into your life who will help you break free from the prison of loneliness. Of course, this will take some time maybe even years. Little by little you will grow in strength and be able to overcome this state of loneliness with your new found friends and one day be able to encourage others in the same situation. Take heart my friend just like I have done and you will be able to experience the joy that awaits you.
I believe that you will be set free and turn to God depending on Him who will always love you unconditionally.
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