4 Ways God Grows Us Through Loneliness

“As I sit here in a room filled with hundreds of other Believers, I couldn’t feel more alone. I feel invisible in a sea of faces. Somehow, I feel very unseen. How did I get here? What did I do to deserve this level of loneliness? How will I ever move forward? My life isn’t going as I planned, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get it back.” These words were penned by a friend of mine several years ago. She had written that note to herself while sitting in a church filled with almost a thousand other people. It was during worship service, and that sometimes awkward part of the service where the pastor encourages everyone to meet and greet their neighbors had just transpired. She looked around the room, and seemingly everyone else knew someone but her. Having just given birth to her second child, she found herself unexpectedly a single mom, and the loneliness associated with that journey filled her with tears as she shared that letter. Fortunately, she was able to find a small Bible study sometime after that, and the friendships she made there have lasted more than a decade now. Loneliness is not a condition that only affects the single mom or even a single person. It impacts us all. Sometimes, we can be sitting in a room filled with others, just like my friend so many years ago, and feel completely and utterly alone. It is in the time of loneliness that God can grow us in ways that we could have never imagined.