“Beep, beep, beep, beep ….”
As Harry Nilsson listened to the incessant sound indicating a busy signal, he wrote the words to a 1968 hit song which became known for its opening line:
“One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do.”
Is there any more poignant single word to describe how we sometimes feel when we call someone and no one answers?
We might feel lonely. And perhaps even a bit afraid and lost.
We can also feel as though everything around us is too difficult to accomplish; too dark to understand; too hard to comprehend.
Sometimes it seems that when we call out there is no reply except for the sound of our own voice.
Ironically, to be and feel lonely is also a time to cultivate the best – and perhaps only – way to see the simple splendor in a difficult situation.
Chuck Swindoll, the founder of Insight for Living, once wrote that “it is in lonely solitude that God delivers His best thoughts, and the mind needs to be still and quiet to receive them.”
A reminder that even in the crucible of a crisis – in the midst of a misery that suggests further struggle is meaningless – hope blooms.
When lonely.
“I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people that make you feel all alone.” – the late great Robin Williams
Loneliness, surrounded by people. How many? Likely too many.
We actually gave some thought, my editor especially, to the difference between being alone and being lonely. Big difference we felt, and ended up changing the title from Alone to Lonely. People can oftentimes be – and need to be – alone and that of course is Swindoll’s point. But being lonely, now that’s an experience that is a darker valley.
When you know God, you are never alone or lonely!
Thank you Pat. What you wrote is very true. The operative phrase of course is “know God.”
There are three of us writing, editing and photographing our way toward a coffee table book we hope one day to be published and placed in the hands of those who could use some encouragement.
Here following, along the lines of your expression of hope, is another article under consideration.
It is entitled, “I Don’t Like God’s Plan.”
There. I said it.
As a matter of fact, I don’t read of any one of the great saints in biblical history who did either.
Joseph was held in a pit, then in a prison cell, where he was forgotten by those who had promised to remember him before Pharaoh.
Or the Hebrew’s 400 years of slavery in Egypt, most bitter toward the end, of God’s people “forgotten” by God.
And there was Abram, for whom the promise of a son had long since gone by the wayside.
And last there were Mary and Martha, who both pointedly expressed that if Jesus had only shown up on time their brother Lazarus would not have died.
And then there are the cries of and in my life, the times in which I think I have been forgotten.
It is at this point, I am reminded of my mother’s favorite flower, Forget Me Nots.
Like Joseph, the Hebrews, Abram, Mary and Martha, the plant’s tiny blue, delicate petals symbolize what is easily overlooked, crushed underfoot and many times forgotten in my desire to achieve vistas of beauty and blessing that God would have me see
Forget Me Nots epitomize the theme of those who would walk with God – that His plan is not my plan.
As one anonymous writer observed, “Our walk with Christ is not a path filled with butterflies, sweet smelling flowers, chirping birds, and the grass is always green. It is not a Disney Theme Park.”
It is a hard walk, and I don’t like it.
And I oftentimes wonder if while wandering the path of life that I would be better served and blessed if my dislike of God’s plan is His way of communicating to me in the midst of crises.
Forget Me Not.