Lonliness

How can it be that I am lonley? Living in a mass of people, yet the lonliness still consumes my heart. How can I be surrounded by family and friends, by smiling faces and friendly conversation, yet still feel alone?? I have friends on MySpace and Facebook. I "talk" with people on email and the phone, but that lonliness is still there. I meet with people almost daily and find great joy in the fellowship I find, yet I walk away still lonely.

There are so many things I could blame it on, point to as the culprit, so many deep things in my heart. And really, isn't that the way it is? There are so many people who are lonely, for so many different reasons. Loneliness is no respector of persons. I love that even Christ felt what it is to be lonely. His entire life was lived with the acute awareness of His Father's presence. Yet, in order for God to complete the work He had been planning since before time, the Father had to leave the Son at the very moment of His greatest despair - the cross. The Father, placing the sin of the world on the shoulders of Jesus, had to turn His face, unable to even look upon the black that was my sin on His Son. Lonliness - utter lonliness - is what Christ must have felt. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The greatest pain He had yet experienced - the absence of His Father.

Ultimately I need to trust that God will use this lonliness to mold and shape me; to prepare me for whatever He is bringing next; to work His plan in and through me, just as He did in Christ. I love this quote from Henri Nouwen:
"To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of loneliness and
to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude. This requires not only
courage but also a strong faith. As hard as it is to believe that the dry desolate desert can yield
endless varieties of flowers, it is equally hard to imagine that our loneliness is hiding unknown
beauty."

I feel God asking me "are you willing?" Am I willing to turn this lonliness into a place of solitude with God? Am I willing to keep going, even if I must go alone as long as I live? And am I willing to find the flowers in the midst of desert, the beauty in the midst of the pain?

I hear God's voice loud and clear in all of this, "Do you trust me?"

To which I must reply "But I will trust in Your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in Your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, for He has been good to me." (Psalm 13:5-6)