Alone in the crowd


Have you ever been there? You have a lot of people with whom you spend a good deal of time (friends and family), yet, when it comes down to it - you feel alone. It stinks. It's.....lonely.

Different things can trigger this sense of loneliness - a change in job, a new home in a different city, friends getting married or having children, friendships coming to a close for various reasons, friendships you thought were going somewhere not going anywhere, or just plain being too busy to be around folks. It can really be tough when several of these things hit at once.

I found some really good reading on the topic. A few things that really spoke to me were:

1. You are vulnerable when you are lonely - and you can easily make some major mistakes.
   
2. Feeling lonely is unavoidable, it's part of being human. But staying lonely is a choice.
   
3. People may let us down. Friends may disappoint us. Families sometimes fracture. But Someone is always with you.

It seems so much easier to be "alone in the crowded room" than to do something like reaching out to God or others who have walked this path before me. Isaiah 52:2 says:

Shake yourself from the dust, rise up, O captive Jerusalem; Loose yourself from the chains around your neck, O captive daughter of Zion.

Matthew Henry's commentary says about this passage of scripture:

Here, God’s people are stirred up to appear vigorous for their own deliverance, v. 1, 2. They had desired that God would awake and put on his strength, ch. 51:9. Here he calls upon them to awake and put on their strength, to bestir themselves; let them awake from their despondency, and pluck up their spirits, encourage themselves and one another with the hope that all will be well yet, and no longer succumb and sink under their burden.

So there you have it. Loneliness comes to all people, but we (you and I) have to choose what to do with that. Stir yourself. Call out to God - He will answer. He is always there. We are never alone.