Loneliness. If there is one word to describe widowhood and life for me right now, that would be it. I know I am not alone in this, so many who have lost loved ones struggle with the aloneness. If you look up synonyms for loneliness these are a few of the words you will find:

abandoned, deserted, forsaken…..

widowed.

I have written about how I dreaded this day. I knew it was coming for so many years. Even though we tried to live each moment to the fullest and enjoy each other, the stress of knowing that death and separation were on the horizon takes a toll on you. The weight of the ever-present threat of death is gone, there are moments where I feel as if I can finally draw a full breath. I had no idea that so permeated my life until it was gone.

So there is a void now, where something once dwelt. Where there was death is life and the promise of existence here and now. My friend said so beautifully that we have lost so much of what made us who we were, wife, lover, caregiver, educator to our children, chef to the masses…the list goes on. We are no longer wife, We are no longer lover. We are caregivers no more. Our children can feed themselves; cooking and daily family meals are in the past. Our time is our own and now we have to find ourselves again. Who are we? What do we want out of life? The world is a wide wide place with innumerable choices and in that is loneliness. It has been a very long time since I had any choice about the direction of my life and now it is an ever-present question. What am I to do with it???

A dear friend said I have to thank God for the loneliness and this has been near impossible. I have found the last few Friday nights to be especially difficult. I was on the way home from work a couple of weeks ago and got stopped at a DUI check. It was obvious I had been crying and the officer saw my hospital badge. He looked at me and said, “rough day at work?”. I just smiled ( tried to) and nodded. Rough day indeed. I sat in my driveway and told God how I feel abandoned. I finally put the words in my mouth and told God how I feel. He knew, but I admitted it. Sometimes all we need to do is say it out loud and then He speaks. ( at least in my life)

There is a saying that before you judge another  person you should walk a mile in his shoes. Empathy is understanding the reference point of other people. God has given me this reference point. I think about those that have suffered the loss of a spouse or child. I think about those that have gone through divorce, willingly and unwillingly. I have known and loved people who this has happened to and I think now of how I let them down by not understanding their pain. I think about those who engage in risky promiscuous sexual behavior and think that loneliness and the need for human touch could lead a person to reach out to anyone. I should not judge but instead reach out. The world is full of lonely people.

So what’s to do then?  Reach out. Ask God who He would have you to reach out to. I am asking. I am asking to be able to go to the uncomfortable places where there are hurting people. I don’t like uncomfortable places but that is the path before me, the shoes he has given me to travel this road. I am asking God to give me the gift of thankfulness for this lonely place. That is a big one and its gonna take some time, but He always answers. The path is not easy but at the end I believe there will be peace and gratitude on my part. I trusted Him with the ever-present threat of death so surely I can trust Him with this new life.

Romans Chapter 8 is so full of wonderful truths. There is no condemnation for those in Christ, we are set free, we are adopted, we can be free from fear. We can cry out Abba Father ( Daddy). I could go on and on. Read it. Read it in many versions to get more out of it. but I leave with this ( the bold and italics are mine because I love this truth)

                                            Nothing Can Separate Us from God’s Love

³¹ What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? ³² Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? ³³ Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. ³⁴ Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.

³⁵ Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? ³⁶ (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”^[o]) ³⁷ No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

³⁸ And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,^[p] neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. ³⁹ No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.