Never Alone

Aloneness, isolation and loneliness are words that sound and seem familiar to most of us. We’ve all encountered at least one of them at one time or another but is there a difference between any of them and what do they really mean?

Sometimes, life throws us more questions than answers like, how can I feel lonely when I'm barely ever alone? Or how can I feel so alone when I'm definitely not lonely?

I'm surrounded by people 24/7 at home, work, Church and anywhere else in between so how can I feel so ‘on my own?’

I guess we need to understand what it really means to be lonely, isolated or alone.

Loneliness is a symptom of lost connection and relationship, first known and encountered in the Garden of Eden when we were separated from God because of our choice ‘to do it our way’. Nonetheless, we are designed to commune and to connect but inevitably relationships and connections break down for all kinds of reasons, even with our own selves explaining why some of us are content in our own company and others of us are not.

Isolation is much more about seclusion, shutting ourselves off and withdrawing from the world, usually because it feels safer to do so and either response is usually triggered by voluntary or involuntary reactions in all of us.

Aloneness is a state of being kept apart from others, making it even harder to connect and build relationships with the world around us. Some of us intentionally keep ourselves apart, whilst others of us are kept apart through isolating differences.

It is possible to feel one of these forces at work in our lives or all of them at the same time but the important thing to remember is that we are not defined by any of them and none of them have the last word over our hopes to love and be loved in any capacity.

The thing about loneliness, isolation and aloneness is that each and all of them will convince you and I that we are the only one feeling this way and that there must be something wrong with us because of it.

Whilst we can acknowledge these feelings as real, we can defy them as truth in and through Christ because He who reconciled us to Himself promised from then on that we would never be left or forsaken (even when it doesn’t feel like it).