Loneliness & Holiness
I just finished listening to S-Town, a podcast that paints a portrait of a man's life, a man named John, from a variety of perspectives and leaves the listener feeling somewhat burdened but also more awake. This post isn't about S-Town, but it is about a theme that runs through John's story both before and after his death: loneliness.
There's a point in the story when Brian, the reporter, is talking to one of John's old friends, to learn more about who John was while he was alive. Allen, the friend, is describing a deep, personal friendship that often involved Allen trying to encourage and lift John out of his recurring depressive states. "Wow," Brian says to Allen, "I had no sense talking to him that he had people in his life, like you, who were trying to help him this way." Allen replies, "I don't think John realized how many people cared for him. And I just think that's really sad because I actually think he died thinking he was lonely." Then, to the listener, Brian posits, "Though I'm not sure there's much of a difference between being lonely, and thinking you are."
This idea of loneliness--and the assertion that it can be both true for the person and not true at the same time--has stuck with me for several days now. I couldn't quite figure out why, but then today, I admitted something to myself: I feel lonely.
Honestly, it seems preposterous to even write that. I have an incredible husband who adores me, and never lets me wonder how he feels about me. I am living in a city with my best friends from college who are hilarious, fun, and always up for an adventure. I have friends all over the country and the world who I try to stay in touch with and can, thanks to the internet and social media. I have family who love and care for me in their own special ways. But, then, I still feel lonely.
I'm also aware that I keep saying that I feel lonely. Not that I am lonely, as if that to admit actual loneliness would mean I was diagnosing myself with a disease that requires a cure. I don't have loneliness, I just feel like I have it. I'm experiencing the symptoms, but I wouldn't test positive for it.
But there's that idea again: is there even "a difference between being lonely, and thinking [or feeling like] you are"?
When my husband and I decided to move from Nashville to Charlotte in early November, I kept saying to him, "I don't feel ready to leave Nashville yet. But I'm excited to be in Charlotte." Charlotte was a familiar place--where I went to college, where many of my friends still live, and not far from Columbia where many of his friends live. It seemed safe. We weren't moving somewhere where we knew no one, or where we were far from those we did know--like we were in Nashville. And yet, we moved to Nashville knowing no one and grew to love it. We made friends. We found a church that we loved and met people who loved us. We had jobs that fulfilled us. Favorite restaurants and date spots. A routine and also plenty of room for spontaneity. A city that we enjoyed showing off to visitors, especially from the "local" perspective. Two different homes that we quickly made ours. Parks and trails for family outings with the pup. Our first friends we met as a married couple who challenged us and supported us as a unit, not just as individuals. We loved Nashville, and it felt premature to leave it when we did--especially for me, who had only been there for a year and a half.
I'm trying to fall in love with Charlotte the way I loved it in college and the way I've fallen in love with other places I've lived (i.e. Athens and Nashville). But it's different coming back. It's not the same as it was 6-10 years ago, and I'm not the same either.
It is a precious gift to be living in the same city as so many of my dearest college friends again, but it also poses a challenge for me. It is making it difficult for me to redefine Charlotte as a home for my adult life, for my married life, for the possibility of a "family" life. Because I've lived in so many places where I knew no one, my heart craves the opportunity to build new relationships and to let this time in Charlotte be a new adventure. But I still haven't found a job and we still haven't found a church, so meeting new people is not easy.
Most of my days are spent either by myself looking/applying for jobs, or with kids I am lucky enough to be babysitting. I get coffee or lunch with friends sometimes, but then I come home to my empty house to look for more jobs. I'm an introvert, so at first, all of the alone time was glorious. But at some point, it has started to shift from feeling glorious to feeling monotonous. And lonely.
[I've never been more thankful for my dog.]
And honestly, I know that Jesus is trying to teach me something here. I know that with him, we don't need to feel lonely. But I also know that we were created for relationships with other humans. We crave that because we were designed to. And my husband is absolutely my best friend, and the fact that I get to fall asleep and wake up next to my favorite human (most nights, except when work keeps him out) is still mind boggling to me. But my heart longs for new, deep, spiritual friends in this familiar but new city we call home. It longs for a community of people who love Jesus.
Tim Keller writes this in his blog: "...we must learn to be fully present in community with our neighbors and with our Christian brothers and sisters. It is not enough to simply show up at a church service where you live physically, but then try to maintain all your closest relationships with friends and family members who live far away." (This is exactly what I tried to do in college and he's right--it is not sufficient for being Christian community.) "God made us embodied beings--the body (though it is weakened by sin) is a great good. God was so positive about bodies that he himself assumed a body in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. If we are going to give and receive grace from each other, we have to get it the way God gave it to us. We have to be involved in accountable friendships and deep relationships with other people where we live."
There was a time in my life when I ran from this type of relationship. I wanted to live my life the way I wanted to live it, so I avoided accountable friendships and deep relationships. But now I long for them. I don't want to do marriage without a community of people around us, praying for us and encouraging us. I don't want to walk through the inevitable valley of death of family members without a community of people around us, praying for us and grieving with us. I don't want to live my life day by day, moment by moment, without a community of people around me, praying for me and holding me accountable. Without this community, I feel lonely. It's not that I don't have local friends, or faraway friends, or a husband. But they are part of a whole. I said to my husband the other day, "When your friends love Jesus, they love you better." Or, as Tim Keller puts it,
We can feel or be lonely because God created us to be in relationship with each other--deep, meaningful, purposeful, love like crazy relationship. The things we long for, we long for because God created us with that longing. I love the way Donald Miller explains this concept in Searching for God Knows What:
And what is one of the ways we can experience God? Through relationships with other believers! Jesus tells us, "If two of you agree here on earth concerning anything you ask, my Father in heaven will do it for you. For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them" (Matt. 18:19-20 NLT).
Real, honest, accountable relationships with other Christians is one of ways that God reveals himself to us. We need community. If you feel lonely without it, that's because you were designed to be in it!
So, is there a difference between being lonely and thinking you're lonely? Perhaps not. But I take comfort in knowing that my loneliness is a result of being made in God's image--a God who was lonely enough to make a creation just so he could have real relationship with them. We are sometimes lonely because we were created to be holy. And holiness is found in how we live with and love one another, just as Christ lived with and loved us.
There's a point in the story when Brian, the reporter, is talking to one of John's old friends, to learn more about who John was while he was alive. Allen, the friend, is describing a deep, personal friendship that often involved Allen trying to encourage and lift John out of his recurring depressive states. "Wow," Brian says to Allen, "I had no sense talking to him that he had people in his life, like you, who were trying to help him this way." Allen replies, "I don't think John realized how many people cared for him. And I just think that's really sad because I actually think he died thinking he was lonely." Then, to the listener, Brian posits, "Though I'm not sure there's much of a difference between being lonely, and thinking you are."
This idea of loneliness--and the assertion that it can be both true for the person and not true at the same time--has stuck with me for several days now. I couldn't quite figure out why, but then today, I admitted something to myself: I feel lonely.
Honestly, it seems preposterous to even write that. I have an incredible husband who adores me, and never lets me wonder how he feels about me. I am living in a city with my best friends from college who are hilarious, fun, and always up for an adventure. I have friends all over the country and the world who I try to stay in touch with and can, thanks to the internet and social media. I have family who love and care for me in their own special ways. But, then, I still feel lonely.
I'm also aware that I keep saying that I feel lonely. Not that I am lonely, as if that to admit actual loneliness would mean I was diagnosing myself with a disease that requires a cure. I don't have loneliness, I just feel like I have it. I'm experiencing the symptoms, but I wouldn't test positive for it.
But there's that idea again: is there even "a difference between being lonely, and thinking [or feeling like] you are"?
When my husband and I decided to move from Nashville to Charlotte in early November, I kept saying to him, "I don't feel ready to leave Nashville yet. But I'm excited to be in Charlotte." Charlotte was a familiar place--where I went to college, where many of my friends still live, and not far from Columbia where many of his friends live. It seemed safe. We weren't moving somewhere where we knew no one, or where we were far from those we did know--like we were in Nashville. And yet, we moved to Nashville knowing no one and grew to love it. We made friends. We found a church that we loved and met people who loved us. We had jobs that fulfilled us. Favorite restaurants and date spots. A routine and also plenty of room for spontaneity. A city that we enjoyed showing off to visitors, especially from the "local" perspective. Two different homes that we quickly made ours. Parks and trails for family outings with the pup. Our first friends we met as a married couple who challenged us and supported us as a unit, not just as individuals. We loved Nashville, and it felt premature to leave it when we did--especially for me, who had only been there for a year and a half.
I'm trying to fall in love with Charlotte the way I loved it in college and the way I've fallen in love with other places I've lived (i.e. Athens and Nashville). But it's different coming back. It's not the same as it was 6-10 years ago, and I'm not the same either.
It is a precious gift to be living in the same city as so many of my dearest college friends again, but it also poses a challenge for me. It is making it difficult for me to redefine Charlotte as a home for my adult life, for my married life, for the possibility of a "family" life. Because I've lived in so many places where I knew no one, my heart craves the opportunity to build new relationships and to let this time in Charlotte be a new adventure. But I still haven't found a job and we still haven't found a church, so meeting new people is not easy.
Most of my days are spent either by myself looking/applying for jobs, or with kids I am lucky enough to be babysitting. I get coffee or lunch with friends sometimes, but then I come home to my empty house to look for more jobs. I'm an introvert, so at first, all of the alone time was glorious. But at some point, it has started to shift from feeling glorious to feeling monotonous. And lonely.
[I've never been more thankful for my dog.]
And honestly, I know that Jesus is trying to teach me something here. I know that with him, we don't need to feel lonely. But I also know that we were created for relationships with other humans. We crave that because we were designed to. And my husband is absolutely my best friend, and the fact that I get to fall asleep and wake up next to my favorite human (most nights, except when work keeps him out) is still mind boggling to me. But my heart longs for new, deep, spiritual friends in this familiar but new city we call home. It longs for a community of people who love Jesus.
Tim Keller writes this in his blog: "...we must learn to be fully present in community with our neighbors and with our Christian brothers and sisters. It is not enough to simply show up at a church service where you live physically, but then try to maintain all your closest relationships with friends and family members who live far away." (This is exactly what I tried to do in college and he's right--it is not sufficient for being Christian community.) "God made us embodied beings--the body (though it is weakened by sin) is a great good. God was so positive about bodies that he himself assumed a body in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. If we are going to give and receive grace from each other, we have to get it the way God gave it to us. We have to be involved in accountable friendships and deep relationships with other people where we live."
There was a time in my life when I ran from this type of relationship. I wanted to live my life the way I wanted to live it, so I avoided accountable friendships and deep relationships. But now I long for them. I don't want to do marriage without a community of people around us, praying for us and encouraging us. I don't want to walk through the inevitable valley of death of family members without a community of people around us, praying for us and grieving with us. I don't want to live my life day by day, moment by moment, without a community of people around me, praying for me and holding me accountable. Without this community, I feel lonely. It's not that I don't have local friends, or faraway friends, or a husband. But they are part of a whole. I said to my husband the other day, "When your friends love Jesus, they love you better." Or, as Tim Keller puts it,
"When Christians experience Christ's radical grace through repentance and faith, it becomes the most intense, foundational event of our lives. When we meet someone from a sharply different culture, race, or social class but who has experienced the grace of Jesus Christ through the gospel, we don't see the differences first, because we are looking at someone who has been through the same life and death situation as we have, since in Christ we have spiritually died and been raised to new life. (Eph. 2:1-6; Rom. 6:4-6.) And because of this common experience of grace--now a deeper identity marker than our family, race, or culture--when we come together, we fit 'fit'! 'As you come to him, the living Stone--rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him--you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house' (1 Peter 2:4-5). Like stones that already have been perfectly shaped by the mason, the builder simply lays each next to the other and they interlock into a solid and beautiful temple. When we speak to others who know God's grace, we see that their identity is now rooted more in who they are in Christ than in their family or class. As a result we sense a bond that overcomes those things that, outside of Christ, created insurmountable barriers to our relationships. Jesus has knocked them down."
We can feel or be lonely because God created us to be in relationship with each other--deep, meaningful, purposeful, love like crazy relationship. The things we long for, we long for because God created us with that longing. I love the way Donald Miller explains this concept in Searching for God Knows What:
"These wants we have, like wanting to be right, wanting to be good, wanting to be perceived as humble, wanting to be important to people, and wanting to be loved, feel perilous, as though by not getting them something terrible is going to happen...God wired us to that He told us who we were, and outside that relationship, the relationship that said we were loved and valuable and beautiful, we didn't have any worth at all...As Paul said, if those relations are disturbed, the relations between God and man, then we feel the desire to be loved and respected by other people instead of God, and if we don't get that love and respect, we feel very sad or angry because we know that our glory is at stake, that if there isn't some glory being shone through us by somebody who has authority, we'll be dead inside, like a little light will go out and our souls will feel dark, like nothing can grow here. We'll feel that there is a penalty, by default, for being removed from love.
"What if the way the Trinity operates explains the way humans are wired, and that we will be fulfilled when we are finally with God and, in His companionship, we know who we are? What if when we are with God, we feel that we have glory, we feel his love for us and know, in a way infinitely more satisfying than a parent's love or a lover's love, that we matter?"
And what is one of the ways we can experience God? Through relationships with other believers! Jesus tells us, "If two of you agree here on earth concerning anything you ask, my Father in heaven will do it for you. For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them" (Matt. 18:19-20 NLT).
Real, honest, accountable relationships with other Christians is one of ways that God reveals himself to us. We need community. If you feel lonely without it, that's because you were designed to be in it!
So, is there a difference between being lonely and thinking you're lonely? Perhaps not. But I take comfort in knowing that my loneliness is a result of being made in God's image--a God who was lonely enough to make a creation just so he could have real relationship with them. We are sometimes lonely because we were created to be holy. And holiness is found in how we live with and love one another, just as Christ lived with and loved us.
"Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate? Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose. Don't be selfish; don't try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don't look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had" (Phil. 2:1-5 NLT).
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