Trick or Treat
On Halloween I decided to walk into town. I didn’t have anywhere particular to be, but it was a nice night and I just felt like going for a walk to look at the Halloween decorations on my street. (I love jack o’ lanterns!) As I was walking along, I found myself thinking of all the good things in my life, and thanking God for them, in a kind of low-key, conversational way. I passed some trick-or-treaters. I passed a couple of adults in costume, probably on the way to some party or other. As I turned onto the main street, I saw a woman getting out of her car. I don’t know anything about that woman, but something in her body language, or perhaps her expression as glimpsed from across the street, evoked the word “LONELY.”
What does it mean to be lonely?
It’s not just one feeling. It’s a package: mix and match.
Sadness at feeling like you’re missing something. Jealousy for those who have what you don’t. Frustration at feeling like you’re trying and trying with no success. Disconnection, like there’s a source of energy that other people are tapping into, but you’re unplugged and you can’t find the socket. Bitterness and self-disgust, at the thought that maybe it’s your own fault you don’t have what everyone else has. Pride, sneaking the thought in that maybe what they have isn’t that great after all and you’re better off this way all by yourself. Needy, clinging too hard to those relationships that you do have, to get what you need from them… but seeing also that this very neediness has the tendency to drive people away, because you take and take and don’t have anything to give in return. Empty and hollow.
Lonely. A small word, but full of pain. It’s very different from “alone.” It’s possible to be alone and completely happy, connected, at peace. It’s possible to be in a crowd, a celebration, and be horribly lonely.
Yeah, I know lonely.
And on Halloween, a casual glimpse of a woman across the street brought that word to mind, and I looked inward and thought, with a shock, I don’t feel that way tonight. In fact, I realized I hadn’t felt that way in… months? a year? I don’t even know when it stopped.
What happened and why hadn’t I noticed?
I think it is because I have not been thinking about being lonely. In fact, the Lord has helped me think less about myself, in general. I have been thinking, instead, of Him: asking Him how I can serve Him.
Ask and you will receive… He has given me plenty to do, rather to my surprise. (I thought you had to be, you know, a more experienced Christian before you had things like “ministry work.” That presupposition went out the window several months ago.)
In looking at the work in front of me, I forgot to think about my own loneliness.
In answering requests for service in my church, I forgot to think about how I wanted a connection.
In forgetting for a bit about my own need for healing, I discovered that He had been doing it all along.
Ever try to glue a broken mug together? After you carefully apply glue to the jagged edges and put the pieces into place, you’re supposed to let it dry. If you keep “testing” to see if the glue has set, chances are you’ll just pull apart the half-set glue and end up with a mess. Same thing for physical healing: when you have a cut or scrape, if you keep prodding it every day, looking to see if it’s healed yet, it’ll take a lot longer to heal.
I’m still needy – no doubt about it. I still feel a lot of anxiety about what other people think of me; I look to my friendships to carry more emotional weight than they ought to. But needy isn’t quite the same thing as lonely. I don’t have to feel bad about being needy. I do have to look for the right way to meet those needs. What I must do is look to my Maker to fill those needs. My priest advised me that I can and should ask Him to help me on this: to ask Him to fill me with His love, the love that will meet all my needs and more, the love that will free me from anxiety and the desire to please others and win their approval. I know my heart is not open to His love the way He wants it to be, but I have felt His love, as it were, seeping in around the cracks. I had a few precious moments in which He has flooded me with a sense of His presence. It has made me long to know Him more fully, to truly be open to His love all the time.
Not only can He fill those needs – not only does He want to – but He can help me to want Him; He can help me open my heart to Him.
We are all needy; it’s part of what we were made to be. We don’t have to be lonely. Thanks be to God.
Related posts:
Dr Holly Ordway came to Christ through reason, in the pursuit of truth. "In your hearts honor Christ as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect" (1 Peter 15).
She writes about her journey from atheism to orthodox Christian faith in her book "Not God's Type: A Rational Academic Finds a Radical Faith" (Moody Publishers).
