I am not really like a lot of people. I mean, I am very honest—painfully so, most of the time—for me as much as someone else. I am also very transparent. There is not much that I hide. What you see is what you get. Black is black and white is white, and the only gray areas are those in the skies right before a good rain. Now I know if anyone is reading this they are saying get to the point ... okay ... here goes.
I am not ashamed to say that I have suffered from many days and nights of total loneliness. I have cried more tears over just wanting to have someone to talk to. I have a house full of people all the time but I am the loneliest person I know. Sometimes I just log on to Facebook in hopes that someone will want to talk to me. Sad, you say? Yes it is. I long for some kind of connection to someone else; Even if for only a moment. I have a deep-seated desire to just hear the voice of someone else other then my own or someone that isn’t asking for something. Just conversation. I don’t ask for love or even friendship, just someone to talk to from time to time. It doesn’t even have to make sense, just a conversation of one person conversing with another.
As I was thinking along these terms it hits me, “Linda, you feel alone,” (You see there I am talking to myself ... haha) but you are never alone. God is always with you. He has always been there. Even when I didn’t realize it, he was there. I read the Bible and I don’t feel alone. It is as if someone is there speaking to me. I can spend hours in the Bible, and not even comprehend how long I was reading until daylight shines through my windows. I get lost in my conversation with God. It takes me to a different place and I lose all track of time and I love it. I find a place of peace and safety.
I remember as a kid, I had this wonderful great uncle, which would tell me some awesome stories. Oh, how I loved to sit at his feet and just take in every word and detail. How I would soak in every emotion that he would portray as he told it. I would watch his body language, the widening of his eyes as he told the story, his eyes would shine. The intensity of those moments was overwhelming. I would get lost in that space and time. For a singe moment, for just a little while I could be someone else in my mind, an escape from the life that I dreaded to return to.
I do the same with the Bible. I sit at God’s feet and I get lost, I laugh, I cry, and I question, why and what happens next. All with a childlike intensity. Like a child, I become a part of the story; a character in the “Tale of Life” the real one. So when loneliness creeps in, I grab my Bible. Why? Because it tells you that you are not alone. That God is with you. You can feel him with every turning page. Like Hebrews 13:5, “Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” That says so much when you feel lonely, I know. So often I have to search the scripture and find what I need and sometimes God just gives it to me, I open the Bible and it is right there in black, white, and red.
Matthew 28:20 says, “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen” Proverbs 18:24 states, “A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” How I thank God for the one who sticks closer than a brother, because Friends, no matter how good you are to them, will let you down, hurt you and turn their backs on you, but God never will. He was there before your birth. Isaiah 44:24 says, “Thus saith the LORD, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the LORD that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself.” And my favorite of all times, Isaiah 49:15–16, “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.”
