It’s a funny thing, that emotion.  It feels sinister and makes me panic and I grab blankets or chocolate or search the room wildly for busywork.  Like someone’s got a gun to my head.  I. have. got. to. get. this. done. I say through focused scary brain because I’m afraid to look up from what I’m doing.  I’m afraid something might grab me that I don’t see.

Loneliness moves into my space when I feel like I’ve lost something. It sits in my favorite chair and mocks me.  I can be surrounded by friends at church, the kind that mean what they say, and still I feel alone.  Lonely is a liar. It robs me of what’s real and tries to get me to believe that what I’ve lost is all I had.

It also shames me.  How strange it is that I’d rather admit a character flaw than the emotion of lonely.  There’s a certain sense of compulsion to convince that life is a commercial and who me?  Lonely?  Don’t be ridiculous.  I am blessed.  Blessed, I tell you.  Call me blessed.  I don’t have time to be lonely.  See my smiling pictures of Facebook with all the people who love me??  That’s why I put them there.

But the truth is…….lonely doesn’t look at my watch or my calendar.  It doesn’t care what you think of me.  It rushes in unawares when it sees me vulnerable.  And threatens to take me down; to build a plexiglass wall around me that I can’t reach past and no one else can see but me.  And I start to feel mute and listless.  And even my arms feel weak so I can’t wave a white flag.

I just wanted to let you know.  Sometimes I feel lonely.

“Do you ever feel like a complete failure?”  And you go to answer it and instead you “accidentally” call them.  And you say, “what’s going on?” and you really mean….what just happened with the phone?……but you hear the person’s voice on the other end and then you realize…….

Oh.  “What’s going on?” means something entirely different.

And they tell you.  The details.  The argument.  The feelings of failure.

And you hear yourself asking…”What are you afraid of?”  Like, underneath it all?  And the answer is the surface reason.  “No,” you hear yourself saying.  “What are you afraid of most?”

“Being alone.  Feeling like I don’t have anyone.  No friends. Nothing.”

That’s what you’re really “arguing” about.  That’s where the enemy has you.  It’s fear.  And fear tells lies.  And wreaks havoc.

And you realize, probably more than the person you are talking to, that you are not the “wise” one.  You are not the answer at all.  You realize that God Himself just spoke out of your own mouth…..to the both of you.

That’s how He uses us in each other’s lives.

What are you afraid of?

I lay here in the middle of my night and I have this sense of urgency; of heightened perspective.

It’s already a new day.  It’ll soon be a new year.

This thought keeps coming to mind.

Nothing matters but the eternal 

I want to grab onto you, grab onto myself and say it in the mirror…..

Nothing matters but the eternal

This new year?  This new day?  Hold onto each other brave and tight and be our reminder, our encourager, our lighthouse, our compass…..yell it if you have to, like you would if you see danger ahead and you’re not worried about hurt feelings at that moment because you just want them to be safe.

The distractions of the day, the needful, the creative, the sandpaper of living with each other, the abundance of money to play with, the lack of money to live with, My leg hurts, my heart hurts, where to vacation this year.  Life ends for someone, begins for another.  You’ve got it figured out…then…what in the world is going on?  Should we have sushi or mexican?  What will become of my kid one day, why can’t I just get them to take out the trash?  Just take out the flippin trash!  And just what did you mean by that??  I’m nervous.  I’m peaceful.  Why can’t I just let it go?!  Check out that chick, if I could only be married to her. I’m lonely.  Leave me alone.  Come back.  Look what I painted, look what I wrote, look what I photographed, look what I cooked….look at me, notice me, love me, do I matter, what matters, what even matters??!

God does.  Forever does.  Yeah.  But the distractions.  They pull at my head and my heart and my hands and my mind.  And before you know it I’m elbow deep in bread dough and netflix choices and financial advisors and chestnuts roasting by an open fire pursuits and arguments and hurt feelings and  relationships that exploded and when did my rudder turn??

God?  Make even my “good” things mean nothing if the eternal isn’t in it.  Make my every endeavor pale, make it turn to dust, frustrate me, don’t let me run away, don’t let me stop too soon.  Don’t let my conversations be less than honesty,  stop me, stop me, stop me…..if it takes the place of the eternal.

Don’t give me what I want.  Give me all of You.