Alone but Never Forsaken

Remember back to the peak months of the Coronavirus? Everything was shut down, you couldn't go out with friends or family, school and work were online, everyone hoarding toilet paper, etc. Ultimately, everyone was isolated. There were mothers giving birth alone in hospitals, elderly alone in their last days, and the sick alone and quarantined to a small room. I think everyone who lived through Covid-19 would say it was a little lonely. Mental health reports of the time exhibited rapidly increasing rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide.

For me, Covid hit late into my junior year of high school and continued throughout my entire senior year. This began as a very lonely time for me. Right after the world shut down, so did my dating life. My two-year relationship ended on some pretty bad terms, and my world as I knew it did a total 180... I might even call it a 360. As would be expected, I entered into a deep season of loneliness. I had lost the person I had made my entire world for the past two years, I wasn't allowed to see my friends, and I couldn't go out anywhere to distract myself from the pain and loss I was feeling. Soon after, I developed a whole list of health issues and was put on an even greater lockdown out of fear of what would happen if I contracted the virus. You would never believe me when I tell you that that season turned out to be the greatest thing that could've happened to me. In my isolation, I turned to God who healed my most broken parts. My season of loneliness wasn't a death sentence, but, rather, a beautiful time of growth and intimacy with God.

Some of you reading this post may be dealing with the heavy weight of loneliness. Perhaps you're even wondering if God has abandoned you in this season of life. But I promise you, He has not. But don’t take my word for it, take God’s. Deuteronomy 31:8 says, "The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged." You may have heard over and over again that God is with you, and He has a plan for your life. And that still holds true. Yet maybe you're just stuck questioning what God's purpose could possibly be for leaving you all alone right now.

God separates us for 4 main reasons. First, He is using this season to give us the tools we need for what He has set before us. During Covid, God had to re-teach me how to trust Him, how to be vulnerable with Him, how to rely on Him, and how to listen to Him. I desperately needed life to slow down so that I could refocus on what truly matters, and that's a blessing I’m beyond grateful for. Second, God separates us so that we might be able to clearly determine God's voice from the rest of the noise. The enemy's main goal is to drown out God's voice from our lives, and perhaps God is using this time because He needs you to be able to clearly distinguish His voice from our friends, spouse, coaches, teachers, parents, etc. He will purposely put you in a season so that He might equip you to know His voice and listen intently for it. Third, He separates us so that we might focus all our attention on Him. When we devote this time to Him, He can heal the wounds the world says they can heal. I guarantee that if my breakup didn't happen during Covid, I would've tried to fill the hole in my heart with a bunch of distractions. However, because I was forced into isolation, I healed in a way that was permanent, rather than a temporary band-aid. Finally, He separates us so that we might be unrecognizable to those who only knew us by our wounds. When we exit this season of loneliness, we come out more recognizable by the love and joy of our Father, rather than by the things of the world. What if in this season of isolation, you've actually been purposely positioned to experience an everlasting comfort instead of a fading one?

Perhaps, we have gotten a little too comfortable and codependent on the people and things around us. What if God wants your joy, peace, and faith to no longer be attached to people and things? When we enter into a season of loneliness those are usually the first things that go out the door. We no longer have joy, we no longer have peace, and we no longer have faith because we have nobody left to attach it to. The Bible tells us that we are to build our dependency on God alone. Psalm 62:5-8 is the posture of heart we ought to position ourselves in. It says, "I depend on God alone; I put my hope in him. He alone protects and saves me; he is my defender, and I shall never be defeated. My salvation and honor depend on God; he is my strong protector; he is my shelter. Trust in God at all times, my people." This habit of codependency will continue to leave you empty and broken unless it is fixed. Maybe you've had friends who said they would walk with you in your struggle but abandoned you somewhere along the way. Maybe you had a spouse who said they would heal you but left you more broken than you started. Maybe you had a parent who said they would show up for you but let you down over and over again. Paul tells us that there is one who will never leave us or forsake us, even as we change, heal, and grow. So, in this time of isolation, God promises to be with you through your hills and valleys. In our separation, God is sanctifying us, changing us to look more like Him. This is when your mind, ambitions, hopes, and desires begin to change, and through this, God makes us unrecognizable to the people who left us on the journey.

You see, loneliness is a gift because it forces us to stop depending on people to do what people can't do. You can't cure loneliness without a healthy relationship with God. When you have a good relationship with God, every other relationship benefits. If something happens in those other relationships, you have a firm foundation to fall back on. Loneliness can be a beautiful thing too because it is a door to knowing how Jesus felt. He experienced loneliness on the cross, loneliness when his closest friends turned their back on Him, loneliness when the woman poured the oil all over His body and the people yelled that He wasn't worth it, loneliness when He needed to pray and told His disciples to also, and they fell asleep. When we look at loneliness as an opportunity to feel how Jesus felt when He paid it all for us, we can start to see a certain beauty in it. I think if we decided to take our loneliness to Jesus, He would meet us with understanding. It's comforting to know that the same guy who rose from the dead, can understand the loneliness we feel inside and loves us all the same.

Ultimately, God takes you into a season of loneliness so that you can be in aloneness with Him. Then through this aloneness, He takes you to a place of hiddenness. No one else but you and God. Once you reach this place of hiddenness, you receive a newfound peace as God covers you in the shadow of His almighty wings. Your walk with the Lord will become so much stronger in this season because your focus will be on Him and Him alone. In this hiddenness, He speaks to you, protects you, heals you, and holds you like a child in their parent's arms. He will give you the right people in His time, but we must be obedient and persevere in this season. God will not leave you in your loneliness. Once you've reached your destination, you'll see the miraculous season He was preparing you for and find yourself grateful for where you’ve been.

May your roots run deep, and your faith remain strong! As always, Stay Rooted, my friends! :)