FOR THE TIMES YOU FEEL ALONE

It’s easy to feel alone isn’t it?

To feel isolated and apart from everything and everyone…including God.

There’s this feeling of heaviness mixed with anxiety that overcomes our senses in the moments we feel alone. In fact, it can be so overwhelming that even in a crowded room one can feel lost and frozen in time. It doesn’t matter if we’re by ourselves or at the dinner table with family…the invisible fingers of isolation can grip our hearts and make us ache.

Of course, this is just the beginning stages of what one can experience when feeling alone.

If one was to dig deep into the void, it wouldn’t be long before the numbness of emotional feelings started to influence the thoughts, actions, motivations, and pursuits of the one struggling to keep their head above the water. It’s the struggle of staying connected and not losing ourselves and who we are.

I’m reminded of a Bebo Norman song in which he shares his own struggles with anxiety and feeling alone.

“Laying flat upon my back, all the world in motion. Everything goes by so fast, I feel like I’m frozen.

I have no fear of height or depth, I have no fear of crashing. The single thing I fear the most, simply feeling nothing.”

If any of this sounds familiar to you…you’re not alone.

Sometimes in the pressure of our daily lives (however that looks for you), we can find ourselves feeling lonely and separated from our friends and family. Worst, we can feel like God is a million miles away from where we’re at.

The truth is though; He’s not a million miles away.

God is everywhere we have ever been and everywhere we will ever go. He’s with us 24 hours a day and knows our every thought and prayer. If we choose to earnestly seek Him…we will find Him…because He is here…waiting patiently for us to reach out to Him.

“I’ve loved you the way My Father has loved Me. Make yourselves at home in My love. If you keep My commands, you’ll remain intimately at home in My love. That’s what I’ve done – kept my Father’s commands and made Myself at home in His love.”

--John 15:9-10 (MSG)

What Jesus reveals in this verse is how we find our way out of feeling alone.

By accepting and making ourselves at home in His love, we are rejecting all those things that the world says makes us important and valuable. Those things that are temporary and bring a lack of substance to our lives. We’re putting aside our own egos and selfish desires and understanding (perhaps for the first time) that God does not love us because we are valuable. We are valuable because God loves us.

Once we accept God’s love and get to know Him more intimately, our love for Him will grow. As we love Him more, we will find that we are able to love our family and friends more. The things that caused us to be severed from others and feel isolated, will fade away in loves rebirth in our hearts.

Whatever is holding you back from embracing God and the people around you, let this be the day that you decide to destroy those strongholds for good. Let them become the ruins on which God builds a new and purposeful life for you. It’s a choice that only you can make.

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

It’s time, isn’t it?

“Let my ruins become the ground you build upon, let my ruins become the start. Let my ruins become the ground you build it on, from what’s left of my broken heart.”

--Bebo Norman

BEBO NORMAN "RUINS" SONG