The lonely places

I was meeting with a young man yesterday, and he told me about a survey that revealed 60% of young ladies who are in a relationship already have a backup boyfriend in mind.

That’s about the most compelling evidence for how much we fear being alone. When 6 out of 10 people in a relationship are already making plans for what to do after that relationship, we may have a problem.

It’s not that we should like being alone — after all, God made us for relationships and community. In fact, the Bible emphasizes that family is the God-ordained remedy for the lonely (see it for yourself in Psalm 68:6), so we never have to think God wants us to feel lonely.

But another verse does reveal that we don’t have to be afraid of lonely places or lonely seasons.

“But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” (Luke‬ ‭5‬:‭16‬, emphasis mine)

As that survey showed, we will often do whatever it takes to make sure we’re never lonely, and yet Jesus not only went to lonely places, he went there often.

He knew something that we don’t. He knew that loneliness is temporary, and that lonely places can be full when we meet the Father in them.

A little over a year ago, I stumbled across the work and writing of Pete Greig. Pete’s the founder of the global, modern-day 24-7 prayer movement, and I couldn’t think of a better way to end this Valentine’s Day post than with a prayer he wrote a number of years ago.

If you’re in a lonely place on this day that seems designed to highlight the pain of singleness, I offer his words as a comfort for you today.

I pray today for those in love, those out of love, and those in between. I remember especially those who find themselves a little bit lonelier than normal.

Lord, I do not pray today for loved-up couples, exchanging overpriced flowers and foil-wrapped hearts, leaking pheromones like diesel fumes at candlelit dinners. I’m pretty sure they will be OK (for now).

Instead, I hereby dedicate this happy-crappy day to anyone caring for a loved-one with a chronic illness of body, mind or soul. Lord let them be a little bit more okay because I prayed.

Flame of Love, melt our tiny, tinny chocolate hearts. Wherever marriages have grown cold, calloused with conflict or mired in the mundane, would you please rekindle the fires of true romance?

Attend to the elderly gentleman gazing at a fading sepia photograph in a silver frame of a wedding in another time. Look at him and look with him and be with him in the remembering and the unremembering too.

And, on this day named after one of your unmarried saints, would you please bring a little unexpected joy to anyone wistfully buying flowers for themselves? Let their daffodils last longer and shine brighter than the overpriced red roses that also caught their eye.

God of all comfort, strengthen single parents on this difficult day. Let their kids be kind, let their teens tidy their bedrooms, and if that’s a miracle too far (I realise you’ve got a lot on in the world right now), could they at least be less grumpy and initiate a hug at bedtime?

And so, may the arms of love, flung wide on the cross, embrace the unlovely and unloving parts of my world, my workplace, and my life today. Forgive me, I pray, for this cheap, hysterical, isolating thing I have sometimes made of love, of life, and of You.

Amen.

Amen, indeed.

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