Winston Salem church of Christ

I am lonely and all alone when it is only me.  Loneliness is a heartbreaking and depressing state of mind.  But you can be lonely without being alone.  People can be lonely in a crowed room.  There are many spouses who are lonely – not alone, but lonely.  The distance between two cold hearts is vast.  The wife stays all day at home with the children with no adult company and she is lonely for some romance from the man she loves.  The man, working hard all day, is lonely too – not enough time making not enough money.  In his mind he experiences the emptiness of dreams unfulfilled.  There are too many children waiting for Daddy to come home from work to play who are still waiting and still lonely.  They have a “Father,” but do they have a “Dad?”  Loneliness is mainly emotional.  Loneliness is soul-consuming; slowly, achingly, and daily.   Being alone is the physical reality that is equivalent to the mental state of loneliness.  Being alone is experiencing an all-encompassing danger – as if quietly minding your own business and then out of the corner of your eye seeing tragedy running toward you, running your down, and you are running out of time.  You have no where to hide and no one to run to.   Being alone is the dangerous reality of isolation – no protection, no deliverance, no hope, and strangely sometimes there isn’t even any loneliness – you are too afraid to feel lonely…because you are overcome with the fear of being alone. Being alone is when our physical senses become enhanced and heighted.  We hear the little creaks of the house settling.  The imagination suggests we are not alone in the deepening darkness.  We see the shadows flickering through the curtains from the street lights.  The imagination invents unwanted guests.  We smell the odors still lingering in the thick night air.  The imagination doesn’t remember that smell.  We feel the temperature, whether it be warmer or colder.  Our skin starts to prickle with goose bumps.  The imagination tricks the mind into panicking – did I lock the front door?    Then…ever so quietly, all the physical senses merge into one overwhelming sense of dread.  “I…am…all…alone.”  This is not loneliness.  You are not depressed.  This is fear.  This is being alone. This is the dread of the unbeliever on their death bed. This is the fear of the unfaithful child sitting by their parent’s hospital bedside. This is the desperation of the non-Christian as the boss says, “I have to let you go.” This is the suffocating feeling of the unrepentant rebel leaving the doctor’s office with the words still echoing, “I am sorry, there is nothing left for me to do.” This is the dread, fear, desperation and suffocating feeling that God wants to protect us from with the promise, “I Am With You.”    “I am with you.”  Four words quenching the consuming loneliness within.  Four words filling us with courage against the enemy without.  Four words.  Forever.  And who said those four forever words, “I am with you?”  “I AM.”  Standing beside the “I AM” I am no longer lonely nor am I alone.  I am with the “I AM.”  And the “I AM is with me.” Isaiah 41:10 – ‘Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’  Perry D. Hall