Wholly Loved and Temporarily Lonely

I hung up the call and cried for the next 15 minutes—deep, snotty, wracking sobs. It hurt. It felt relieving.

The meeting had been work-related, a meeting to talk about future plans, which included a bigger meeting to talk about these same future plans, plans that I had once counted on and now was finding shifting, morphing, slipping out of my grasp and back into the Sea of Maybe, but We’ll Trust God. I’ve had my hands sliced up by those sorts of slippery plans in the past. But the change from planned on to hoped for wasn’t ultimately what brought about the tears.

I was afraid. Afraid of being insignificant. Useless. Excluded. Lonely.

I hiccuped as I hit that word. Lonely. That’s not new. I should be used to it by now—it’s been a part of my story, my walk with the Lord as long as I can remember. I don’t like it, but I’m not unfamiliar with it.

*

I haven’t had much time this summer to sit with this persistent loneliness. A busy, beautiful season of ministry work kept every part of my being occupied from June to the beginning of August. During my weeks away from the students I was working with as they went out to serve the church, I came home to mainly sleep. It was a summer of the satisfying exhaustion of being fully poured out, fully used up—mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically even (I will never travel without my pillow again). It was a summer of feeling close to God, on fire for the gospel, feeling more purpose, calling, and competence than I have in ages if ever.

And then we said goodbye to all our interns at the airport and I came home to a mostly empty, very quiet house and few plans in the diary. And it hit me like a brick wall. I floundered. What do I do now? I felt I was floating in empty, still waters with no sense where the shore was anymore.

That’s eased as I’ve settled back into my neighbourhood, returned

to old rhythms and began new disciplines (will this be the year I become a consistent runner?), had conversations about ministry opportunities and needs in the coming months that I’m excited about, registered for a course in the Irish language. There is no uncertainty for me that this is the right place and the right work for me and I’m every day a little more at home. And yet.

A father and his toddler daughter walk by in the park laughing. A group of friends sits by the canal on a sunny summer evening. I hang up a hard phone call and have no one to give me a hug and listen as I work through it out loud. The loneliness of it still stings.

I’ve never wanted to be alone, not really. It was a major motivating factor to coming back to Ireland in the first place. My internship here as a college student was one of the most beautiful communities I’ve ever been a part of and I wanted to see God do that again—for me, definitely, but also for others. Talking with a colleague after I returned, I told him that I decided to come back instead of go to grad school because I knew how to use my brain—I’ve always known how to use my brain—but what missions taught me/is teaching me is how to use my heart. But what if I wouldn’t get to see God do that again, not in this life? What if this now tender heart of mine has nothing to pour love into? What if it is useless and alone?

*

I started this week reading this familiar prayer:

Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly,

Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision, where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights; hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory.

Let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up, that to be low is to be high, that the broken heart is the healed heart, that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit, that to have nothing is to possess all, that to bear the cross is to wear the crown, that to give is to receive, that the valet is the place of vision.

Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells, and the deeper the wells the brighter thy stars shine; Let me find thy light in my darkness, thy life in my death, thy joy in my sorrow, thy grace in my sin, thy riches in my poverty, thy glory in my valley.

Those fears I hear my heart whispering (sometimes shouting), those aren’t true. Or at least they aren’t the truest. I may end up being useless, a failure. I may not ever have the family, the closeness with another human that I long for. The loneliness may never leave me. But in the midst of it all, I believe more deeply that I am wholly, perfectly, eternally loved. And that love, the love of the Father expressed through Christ and sealed in the Spirit, that’s what’s truest, that’s what defines me, that’s to whom I belong. I am tyring to lean into this season of paradox, discovering rhythms and disciplines again, but following the Spirit’s perfect, winding, unexpected path; fully engaging with all the work God has for me in Ireland, but learning also to be still in his love of my being and not my doing; making and nurturing relationships, but not hiding from the loneliness that reminds me that this world is still broken. Two things can be true, but someday, only one of them will remain and it is love.