October 19, 2015
I’m very aware of my labored breathing today; a heaviness of
something wanting to be purged from my spirit that needs to go but is having
trouble expressing itself fully. It’s
like when you are nauseous and know you will feel better if you can just throw
up but it doesn’t quite come. So I deeply
sigh one more time and ask God to please show and deliver me of what this
is.
As my husband and I face yet one more trial of provision
with his position at his job being terminated and severance pay having ended, I
know that another stretching of our faith is occurring. Although it creates opportunities to stress
and worry about the what if’s (we JUST finally got planted in our house/HOME
and I do not want a 6th MAJOR move since 2009,) I have a deeper
sense of our Provider’s care and that He will faithfully supply for us as He
has always done in the past. I am
standing on Amos 9:15, “I will firmly plant them there in their own land. They
will never again be uprooted from the land I have given them," says the
LORD your God.” Although I have a level of discomfort at times, ultimately I
trust Him. So I really don’t think that
is at the root of this latest sigh.
This is deeper and much more painful than the thoughts
described above. In asking God to show me what is going on with me, I recall the
following:
With the course of my life’s trials, I have been plucked up
from homes, jobs, relationships, and friendships that either were just
developing to become truly meaningful or were counterfeit to begin with and
never settled into something legitimate.
My latest triggers of sorrow and self-pity have been activated
in not being able gather with my family as often as I want because their
schedules are horrifically busy right now.
Friendships are difficult to develop because people are either settled
in their own lives at this point and just frankly, don’t want to go to the
trouble of working it, or they are in different seasons of life than we are and
it’s difficult to find common ground and time.
Facebook and social media displays all too largely in my face how
wonderfully active others are, so a sense of jealousy and being left out is
being fed. (I know that we all present moments
of “look how wonderful my life is” to the world through our social media,
because who of us wants to share the real life undesirable events which sometime
occur in the recesses of closed doors and hearts; but still…I let it impact me
negatively through the life choker called “comparison”.)
So I identify this sigh as an all too familiar sense of
isolation; the worst thing to a person whose main love language they need to
receive is. “Quality Time” with others. (http://www.5lovelanguages.com/)
I understand the roots for isolation lie in my childhood
when I was forced to be alone by parents trying to hide the fact that we were a
dysfunctional family due to alcoholism and other factors. It is painfully clear how much isolation and loneliness
I suffered throughout my life due to myself, others and circumstances.
However, even without childhood roots, any of us can feel
isolated at times, whenever we feel we are alone, regardless of how many people
are in our lives. Mothers can feel
alone when their day consists of endless and seemingly unnoticed chores, but
which are critical to the care and wellbeing of their children.
Leaders/Managers can feel alone because as the saying goes,
“It’s lonely at the top.” The point of
which something begins is just that, a point and not a linear group of
people. The responsibility for those
they lead and what they are to accomplish rests on their shoulders, not the
group of subordinates clustered together below them in the chain of authority.
We can feel alone in one-sided relationships when both
should be contributing, but due to selfishness or life circumstances of the
other, we carry the full burden for the relationship. This particular loneliness is very difficult
because it drains us since the other party is only taking from the relationship
and not putting anything back.
We can feel alone when we see something others can’t see and
there is no one who relates to our revelation. Coupled with feeling alone, we can also feel a
sense of judgement coming from those who can’t see it, and we may then feel the
need to justify ourselves in hopes they will validate us.
We can feel alone with physical or mental health issues
which prevent us from having or allowing others to be in close connection to us
when we actually crave human touch. My
brother had an adult onset form of muscular dystrophy and was housed in a care
facility in Kansas. While talking with
him one day on the phone, it pierced my heart at how deeply he just needed someone
to touch him as he had gone without genuine demonstrations of affection and
love for longer than what he required and what most of us could endure.
We can feel alone in our “new beginnings” because it’s
fresh, raw and unfamiliar, so we are not even sure how to relate anyway. Plus, fear of the unknown can add to our
feelings of instability.
We can be fighting a personal battle no one else knows about. Perhaps we don't feel that a particular person is one who is equipped to take up arms and fight the battle
with us as a side-by-side comrade. It
may not even be appropriate for them to fight alongside us anyway, even though we wish they could be with us in this trial.
We may find ourselves in an arena in which we can’t relate
to others around us; perhaps they are a different culture than we or hold a
different belief system which we will not nor can we compromise, because it
holds the key to our very life.
A major source of loneliness occurs when we lose the most
significant person in our life and we now feel abandoned in our newfound and
unchosen isolation.
One of the main issues with loneliness is that it causes us
to not feel wanted or valuable. One day
several years ago, as I was standing by the patio doors, a neighbor’s dog pen
caught my eye. I observed the beautiful creature inside endlessly pacing around
and around in circles. Each time he
would come to the part of the cage that faced the house, he would stop, look at
the house, and seeing no one, he would circle around again. My gut wrenched, I plopped down and sobbed
right there in front of the glass doors as I related to that precious dog. I humanized how he must feel; abandoned as no
one came to welcome him into the life of the family but instead only unattached
short visits with the sole purpose being to tend to his basic need for food and
water. He was caged for their use, only
to be let out when they wanted something from him, “Go hunt for us, and
otherwise, stay here and don’t bother us.”
If we already have roots of insecurity or low self-esteem,
we can feel we are not worthy of attention and this can lead to chronic
loneliness and isolation. Loneliness can
be our perception of the state we are in as we truly aren’t physically isolated
from others. We may legitimately have
others in our lives but we still “feel” lonely.
Sometimes it’s a fair assessment, but sometimes it’s due to our own
walls of self-preservation protecting us from extending ourselves and possibly
receiving another wound to our heart. It
can also be due to entrenched self-pity which filters everything as lack when
in actuality we do have what we need, we just can’t see it. “Poor me” is a form of a poverty mentality-(that
one is for free! :) )
If we stay in that outlook, we will actually continue to be
wounded by that false protection and self-pity.
People with healthy balance and sense of self don’t erect walls around
their hearts and are not afraid to let others in. Instead, we are to ask for
and face the revelation God shows us as to why we are the way we are when we
sense something is off. He will show us what we need to see in order to go free
from the clutches of imprisonment, IF we will lay aside all fear and truly FACE
IT. We can recognize it as the past reality of our lives but be grateful that
we don’t have to stay that way. We can
surrender to Him as our Healer and Deliverer and go free, knowing that if He is
taking the care and time to show us this very important aspect of our lives and
hearts, that the time to go free is RIGHT NOW. All our times are in HIS hands,
Job 12:10 and Psalm 31:15.
One of the best ways to go free from any form of heaviness is
to praise and thank God for what we DO have. Isaiah 61:3 tells us we can
receive from the Lord “the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness."
I am grateful that I now have a husband who supports and is
able to show me love. I am grateful I have been able to maintain amazing and
blessed relationships with my own children and their beautiful families which
have brought me more joy than I ever imagined.
I’m thankful that I have a few true friends that through modern
technology, we are still connected and current in our relationships. I am thankful for the new friends He is
bringing. I am thankful that due to God’s
healing power in my life, I have overall good health. Most importantly, I have a God who LOVES me
no matter what I do. He understands why
I am the way I am when I am not the faith giant some may see on the outside. He feels with me, right alongside me in His
unconditional love and perfect understanding of me:
“’In all their distress He too was distressed’ (Isa. 63:9)… Jesus
understands heartbreak, betrayal, abandonment, loneliness, sorrow, and pain. He
is acquainted with grief. He cares. He cares for you.” (Ransomed Heart-excerpt
from “What Jesus Weeps Over.”)
Just as a side bar for well-intentioned friends and family,
but who actually have a “Job’s friends” viewpoint, when we judge and say or think
things like, “At least you have_____! You are so blessed and you are letting this
mean way too much! There are a lot of
people who wished they had it as good as you!
There are people so much worse off than you are,” may I offer that in
taking that position with people when they are suffering, it does nothing to
help them go free from what is troubling them. It certainly does not encourage
them. It only heaps condemnation and
guilt on someone who is already down and there is no condemnation to those who
are in Christ Jesus, (Romans 8:1). If we
don’t really have a word from the Lord, who is Healer, Deliverer, Comforter,
Counselor, Wisdom, then it is best to be as Jesus advised and weep with those who
weep, mourn with those who mourn, stay quiet. Often times more is said in our quiet but genuine compassion and support than our words anyway. Sometimes the noise of our words trample on the healing moment of the silent work God is doing on their hearts. Oftentimes when we speak, it's because we feel awkward in not really knowing what to say so we fill up the space with our own "clamor." Just rejoice with them once they
have the manifested victory in Christ Jesus He will give them if they will look
to Him for their help, (Romans 12:15, 1 Corinthians 15:57). Only God knows and understands why something
is impacting someone the way it is and He alone is their judge, (James 4:12). It’s just not our place to decide, short of
God’s revelation of their heart, that someone is overreacting, being foolish,
or being a bad Christian role model, (Colossians 2:16-19). We instead need to seek God for wisdom on how
to be a help or counsel to this person; pray for them to overcome and that the
trial will perfect, establish, strengthen, settle them, (1 Peter 5:10); and ask
that God will turn it all around for their good, (Rom. 8:28).
Prayer if you are
lonely or feeling isolated:
Father, You said in Your word: John 16:24
“Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that
your joy may be full,” so I ask You now to form the divine connections for
friends, family and relationships in my life that will bring me joy. Give me wisdom and discernment to know what
is legitimately from You and help me to be the friend You want me to be as
well. (Repent with the following if the Lord leads you to: Please forgive me for partaking in any way with spiritual forces of heaviness or believing their lies.) Deliver me from all spiritual,
mental, emotional and physical effects of loneliness/isolation. Show me what I
need to do to create and foster these friendships and relationships and help me
be willing to do that. Help me see them
with Your eyes of love and to understand that none of us is perfect.
