His perfect time–Angela’ s Story
Our relationship with our parents can provide both comfort and pain. Thankfully, we have a heavenly Father who offers unconditional love. Angela describes how a desperate search for her earthly…
Topic > When Life Hurts > Loneliness >
One woman’s pursuit of a meaningful relationship, and how she found it in Jesus!
No one likes to be alone. And in order to make the loneliness go away, we can make some bad choices!
When hope is lost, God hears your cry–LaVanna’s Story
Few things are more painful than losing a loved one. When LaVanna lost her husband to cancer, the loneliness was overwhelming. We’ll be reminded that in our most desperate moments God…
The Explanation For Our Difficulties
If you are going through a time of isolation, seemingly all alone, read John 17 . It will explain exactly why you are where you are— because Jesus has prayed that you “may be one” with the Father as He is. Are you helping God to answer that prayer, or do you have some other goal for your life? Since you became a disciple, you cannot be as independent as you used to be.
God reveals in John 17 that His purpose is not just to answer our prayers, but that through prayer we might come to discern His mind. Yet there is one prayer which God must answer, and that is the prayer of Jesus— “. . .
Lifting the Lonely
I’m lonely,” wrote Augusten Burroughs in one of his edgy memoirs. “And I’m lonely in some horribly deep way and for a flash of an instant, I can see just how lonely, and how deep this feeling runs.” I’ve seen Burroughs’ quote shared multiple times on social media. Clearly, he’s expressed a feeling many of us share.
The Holy Spirit gives us that true sense of belonging
Do you ever feel like you’re alone in this world? Today on Discover the Word, the group will reveal why the Holy Spirit can give us that true sense of belonging that we all crave. Find hope in the truth that you’re a child of God, accepted, beloved, and part of a family! Hear a […]
God’s Will, God’s Child
For just a moment imagine being an 11-year-old child who is forced to leave behind everything you’ve ever known—including your parents. In order to escape persecution, you must flee into an unknown world. As a Korean refugee, Sang Bok found himself impoverished and alone. Discover how a loving God transformed Sang Bok’s life as the Lord orchestrated […]
A Letter To All First-Year Students
Hey there, You made it! You’ve survived the plane, bus, or train ride and have arrived at a new season of life. Welcome to university—your home for the next three to four years!
Never Forsaken
Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky said, “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” With that in mind, I read an online article describing “The Top 8 Deadliest Prisons in the World.” In one of these prisons every prisoner is held in solitary confinement.
We are intended to live and relate in relationships and community, not in isolation. This is what makes solitary confinement such a harsh punishment.
Isolation is the agony Christ suffered when His eternal relationship with the Father was broken on the cross. We hear this in His cry captured in Matthew 27:46: “About three…
Deeply Loved
Years ago I had an office in Boston that looked out on the Granary Burying Ground where many prominent American heroes are buried. There one can find the gravestones for John Hancock and Samuel Adams, two signers of the Declaration of Independence, and just a few feet beyond that is Paul Revere’s marker.
But no one really knows where in this burial ground each body is buried because the stones have been moved many times—sometimes to make the grounds more picturesque and other times so lawn mowers could fit between them. And while the Granary features approximately 2,300 markers, closer to 5,000…
Through It All
God not only created us and knows us, but He is in tune to our every thought and emotion. He is there when we are anxious, excited, nervous, delighted, and heartbroken. He is there, and He understands.
The Lonely Season
Amid the pile of post-Christmas mail I discovered a treasure—a handmade Christmas card painted on repurposed cardstock. Simple watercolor strokes evoked a scene of wintry hills livened with evergreens. Centered at the bottom, framed by red-berried holly, was this hand-printed message:
Peace be with you!
The artist was a prisoner and a friend of mine. As I admired his handiwork, I realized I hadn’t written to him in 2 years!
Long ago, another prisoner was neglected as he waited in prison. “Only Luke is with me,” wrote the apostle Paul to Timothy (2 Tim. 4:11). “No one came to my support, but everyone…
The War Within: Finding Hope for Post-Traumatic Stress, Part 2
Thousands of courageous men and women risk their lives in combat. But few of us understand the private inner battle they bring home. For many, it is an ongoing personal struggle that continues long after the war is over. In The War Within: Finding Hope for Post-Traumatic Stress, you’ll find encouragement for veterans and their loved […]
The War Within: Finding Hope for Post-Traumatic Stress, Part 1
Thousands of courageous men and women risk their lives in combat. But few of us understand the private inner battle they bring home. For many, it is an ongoing personal struggle that continues long after the war is over. In The War Within: Finding Hope for Post-Traumatic Stress, you’ll find encouragement for veterans and their loved […]
When Jesus Felt Utterly Alone
We all need solitude sometimes. But we wouldn’t like it 24/7, especially if that solitude was a form of punishment. Yet even a prisoner in solitary confinement for a lifetime would not suffer as Jesus did. On the cross, God the Father turned His face from His only Son, leaving Jesus utterly alone. On “Discover the Word,” we will talk about when Jesus was “deserted,” as foreshadowed in Psalm 22. Listen today to “Discover the Word”!
alone in the dark
Gravity tells the story of Dr. Ryan Stone—a brilliant biomedical engineer on her first space shuttle mission. Her partner for the journey is veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski. During a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes. The shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalski completely alone, tethered to nothing but each other, and ominously spiraling out into blackness.
Loving the Lonely
Finishing up a long day’s work, I pressed the touch screen on my computer one last time and saw a date that was very familiar. Just like that it hit me: Today is my dad’s birthday. Quickly my thoughts went to my mom. Widowed 20 years ago, my mother is a living testimony of God’s provision and strength for those who come face to face with life’s hard unpredictability.
My Father Is with Me
A friend struggling with loneliness posted these words on her Facebook page: “It’s not that I feel alone because I have no friends. I have lots of friends. I know that I have people who can hold me and reassure me and talk to me and care for me and think of me. But they can’t be with me all the time—for all time.”
Jesus understands that kind of loneliness. I imagine that during His earthly ministry He saw loneliness in the eyes of lepers and heard it in the voices of the blind. But above all, He must have…
