You Are Not Alone

by Lori Wilson

A reflection on loneliness, longing, and the God who finds us there

My best friend in high school was a girl named Sue. She was a year older than me, and during her senior year, she had to have open-heart surgery. It was serious. She had to go all the way to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, and when she left, I felt it immediately. I was really worried I would lose her. And then she didn't come back to school that year. She had tutors. She graduated remotely. And I had a lonely junior year.

That's the part that still stays with me. I was in a building full of people every single day. Hallways crowded with kids, a full cafeteria, and classrooms buzzing. And I felt alone. Not just by myself, but genuinely, deeply alone. Like I didn't quite fit. Like the one person who really knew me was gone, and no one else could quite fill that space.

I did eventually find a new best friend in my senior year. But it took time. It always does. You can't rush your way into belonging.

I've come to believe that loneliness is one of the most common human experiences, and one of the least talked about. We are surprisingly good at looking fine on the outside while feeling hollow on the inside. We show up, we smile, we keep moving, and almost no one knows.

Loneliness comes in so many shapes. There is the loneliness of a relationship that has gone quiet, where two people share a home or a history but somehow can't seem to reach each other anymore. There is the loneliness of longing, of wanting a relationship that hasn't come, of watching others seem to find so easily what feels just out of reach for you. There is the loneliness of loss, of missing someone who was home to you, and finding that the world keeps moving even when you aren't ready. And there is the loneliness that surprises you, the kind that shows up in a crowded room, or at a holiday table, or in the middle of a life that looks, from the outside, completely intact.

I know that last one well.

A few years ago, I spent the week between Christmas and New Year's alone for the first time in my life. My kids were with their dad. The house was quiet in a way it had never quite been before. I wasn't sure what to do with it.

What I didn't expect was what started to happen during those quiet days. I kept feeling this urge to write a retreat. A ten-day retreat for January, built around listening to God's voice. I decided to do it, and I chose my favorite scripture passages to anchor each day. It felt meaningful. It felt purposeful. It gave me something to do with all that silence.

I shared what I was working on with a friend, and she asked to see the verses I had chosen. She looked at them for a moment and then looked at me. She said, "Lori, you might want to vary these up. They're all saying the same thing." I said, " No, they aren't. She said, yes they are. Every single one of them is about God being with you and taking care of you. And then she asked, quietly, "Are you feeling lonely?"

Evidently, I still wasn't very good at letting people see what was actually happening inside me.

I looked at those verses again. And I heard it, not just in the Scripture, but through my friend's gentle question. She had seen something in me that I couldn't see in myself. That's a blind spot, and I had a significant one. God used both of them together, her voice and those words on the page, to get through to me. I understood why I had been so compelled to write that retreat. God had a message for me that God knew I needed to hear, and God found two ways to deliver it.

I believe that. I believe God speaks through everything, through Scripture, yes, but also through the people in our lives who pay attention, who ask the right question at the right moment, who see us more clearly than we see ourselves. That friend was a gift I hadn't asked for and didn't know I needed.

The verse I had chosen for when I feel alone was Psalm 23. I have known this psalm my whole life. But that week, sitting in a quiet house between Christmas and New Year's, I read it differently.

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.

He makes me lie down in green pastures,

he leads me beside quiet waters,

he refreshes my soul.

He guides me along the right paths for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley,

I will fear no evil, for you are with me;

your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life.

— Psalm 23:1–6

You are with me. Not you will be with me, not you were with me once. You are with me. Right here. In the darkest valley. In the quiet house. In the crowded hallway where I still feel alone. In the relationship that has gone silent. In the longing that hasn't been answered yet.

You are with me.

I don't think God sent me to that quiet week between the holidays by accident. I think God knew what I needed and made space for me to hear it. That's the kind of God I have come to know, one who doesn't wait for us to find our way to what we need, but who finds ways to bring it to us, sometimes through a friend asking a simple question, sometimes through words we wrote ourselves without quite knowing why.

God is not distant from your loneliness. God is not waiting on the other side of it. God is in it with you, right now, in whatever shape it is taking in your life.

You are not alone. I know that can feel like something people say. I know it doesn't always feel true. But I believe it is. And I believe God will find a way to show you, if you ask.

For Your Reflection

• What form does loneliness most often take in your life? Is it the loneliness of a quiet relationship, longing for something you haven't yet found, a sense of loss, or something else entirely?

• Has God ever spoken to you through another person, someone who saw something in you that you couldn't see in yourself? What was that experience like?

• Is there a loneliness you're carrying right now that you haven't yet brought to God? What has kept you from sharing it?

• Read Psalm 23 slowly. Which verse resonates most with you today, and what might God be saying to you through it?

A closing prayer

God, 

You know the loneliness I carry. You know its shape better than I do, and you have known it longer than I have.

I confess that I am sometimes better at looking fine than I am at letting you, or anyone, see what is actually happening inside me.

Today, I bring it to you honestly. The quiet that feels too loud. The longing that hasn't been answered. The relationship that isn't what I hoped it would be. The space where someone used to be.

Meet me here. Not on the other side of this, but right here, in the middle of it.

And if you want to speak to me through someone in my life, help me to be open enough to hear it. Help me to let people see me, really see me, the way you already do.

Lead me beside quiet waters. Refresh my soul. And help me to trust, even when I can't feel it,

that you are with me.

Amen.