One of my infamous emails to a friend:

One of my friends sent this article to me this morning and I just finished reading it. It totally made me think of you and how you have isolated yourself through fishing. Little comments you’ve made… I don’t know, I think my subconscious picks up on more things than I do and then I attach certain things to people. So please don’t take offence that I’m sending you this. It’s really just to show you what you COULD become if you allow yourself to dwell.



I do personally know what it’s like to reflect back. I was talking with Kathy the other day about how I pray that God will not bring me a man who is short and skinny (whew, good thing I don’t have any short and skinny guy friends!). She could relate to that feeling and assured me that even if he was a midget God would make sure I was attracted to him.

But I have this tendency to look around at my friends and their respective relationships, and then I inadvertantly find myself thinking about the few past relationships I've had. Then my thoughts take a turn for the worse.

Guys always want to “own” me. They want to talk on the phone every day, hang out constantly, know where I am and what I’m doing and with whom I’m doing it. They get in the way of my time with my friends and hate it when I spend an hour on the phone talking about nothing. I have to share the remote and watch stupid things like NASCAR. There’s complaining when I want to watch three episodes of What Not To Wear on a Sunday while I clean.

Is it too much to ask for healthy autonomy? Our own lives and lives together? Lives in Christ and filled with trust, love, understanding and commitment? Not needing to reassure each other all the time, but having a consensus of love? Is that a superficial ideal that I have created to keep people away? Are my standards too high?

When I look at the relationships around me I feel disheartened because I don't want what they have. They have power and control over each other. I don't want power over another person. I don't want to give control over me. I just want to love and be loved in return. So when I turn and see this "love" around me, I want nothing to do with "love."

Nothing.

I’ll promote love for everyone else, I’ll sing the happy song of the wonder and beauty of love. I will encourage second chances. I will point out that there is no perfect man or woman, I will illustrate the value of LOVE. Singing, dancing, rolling in my meadow of change, I will look you in the eyes and I will profess how deserving you are of unconditional love and acceptance, and I will sell you on the opportunity cost of risk… you will leave from our conversation or email refreshed and renewed in a spirit of hope and love.



But for me…


Oh for me…


I will not step on that plank. There are too many sharks in those waters!!!!


Heck no!


I don’t know how to bait a shark and then fend him off. I’m shark bait waiting to bleed if I even put a toe in the shallow end.



Wow.



I’m such a hypocrite.



How do I look in the mirror?


Oh, through rationalization and justification. When I’m done with school I’ll date. When I lose the freshman 15 I gained I’ll date. When my apartment is clean I’ll date. When I finish practicum I’ll date. When God puts His man right in front of me, on my doorstep with flowers and a card that says, “I’m your gift from God and I will not break your heart or try to control you.” THEN I’ll date…


I bet that sounds familiar to you too…


Something tells me that while you might not actually think all those thoughts, they’re floating around back there. They are whispering sweet nothings in your ear. They are tickling your thoughts and they are shackling your actions. They are your ball and chain. You are more committed to them than you have been to any woman.
Am I close???


Anyway, here’s the article that made me think of you. I thought you could get as much out of it as I did. I’m going to re-read it before bed too because I think my subconscious needs to hear it. That little voice in my head sure likes to point out potential rejections far louder than any potential acceptance…


Who am I to give advice?


I’m as scared as you…


OUR COMMON SORROW

by Hudson Russell Davis

Crosswalk. com Contributing Writer

Like yours, my heart is a library of loneliness, longing to be read, but most people come only to browse. All too often the real feelings go back on the shelf.
— Tim Hansel


One of Satan’s chief means of crippling us is to convince us in our loneliness that we are truly alone, not simply without a mate but without a friend, without help and without God—forsaken. He whispers that whatever cries we utter are spoken into thin air and deaf ears, both human and divine. He tells us that people do not care and that God does not care, but it is not so.


Everything that has overtaken us is common to humankind. We all suffer loneliness. We all suffer rejection. We all raise up hope only to know disappointment. This is true of the single and it is true of the married, true under the limelight of success and the clouds of failure. We all know, to some degree, what it is to be misunderstood or ignored.


This does not mean that our sufferings are not individual, not unique; it means we do not suffer alone. I cannot know the ways you have been cut or the bruises you bear, but I care. We can never truly “understand” but need only love. While it is wonderful if someone understands, it is better if they care.


Each of us knows a particular sorrow, but we all know the pain of loneliness and the hurt of dreams deferred. We could resolve not to dream, but that is not wise. We could resolve not to feel, but that is not practical. By never speaking we could withdraw from the dangers of miscommunication, but that is not human. It seems so simple—no dreams no waking horrors, no feelings no hurt, no misunderstanding no discord. Isolation is a natural answer, but it is spiritual suicide.


If we choose not to risk we loose ever so subtly, the sharp edge to our faith. Over time we become people whose lives are as bland as our dreamless nights. Over time we become the boring but safe people who squash the dreams of others and tell them they should be “realistic.” Over time we may convince ourselves that we are the only unhappy souls in the world. We may even come to believe that a tasteless existence is really contentment. It is not. It is a numb, anesthetized, existence that falls short of living. It is a coma.


Self-deceit would rather ask nothing of God than wrestle with the answers he does or does not give. Isolation would rather resolve to need no one than risk failed relationships—even failed friendships. Because that is what it will come to if we never make peace with the loneliness. If it is suppressed, it may one day explode.


If ever we withdraw behind our carefully constructed barricades and for fear of disappointment relinquish hope, we shut out wife, husband and all living things. That is the danger—numbness not only to the hopes and dreams we harbored in our youth, but numbness to all dreams and hopes that life naturally cultivates.


Years of loneliness can warp our thinking and sap our strength. In time we may imagine that over that dune and the next dune is nothing more than sun, sand—and loneliness. So many of you have shared with me you felt lonely and alone in your loneliness. You have been very kind in telling me that my honesty eased your loneliness. I want to tell you that you were never alone. Alone is what the desert makes us feel, but we are not alone.



Indeed not only do I suffer the same trials, but also many of those you encounter weekly as you suffer in silence. How do I know? They have written and told me—a stranger—what they were afraid to tell you. And you have written and told me—a stranger—what you were afraid to tell them. Perhaps some of you felt comfortable with me because I had opened my heart and because you need not look me in the eyes and fear my rebuke. I have encouraged everyone that they are not alone, but want to add one last charge: break the silence! Open up and let someone in. And if someone speaks to you, listen between the lines for the pain that words cannot express.


Be a safe harbor for hurting hearts. Paul writes, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). You may find the comfort you have enjoyed here—in knowing my heart—closer than expected. Perhaps someone near you is waiting for you to break the silence and live by honesty. It is the surest turn in our healing to understand that we are not alone, that we share a common sorrow, a common longing, which is not our own private nightmare.


It is the Enemy’s greatest tool to cripple us, to isolate us in our loneliness. He then attempts to convince us that all the whispers and all the laughter is about us—that we are diseased or damaged and that everyone we meet knows it. But it is not true. He is a liar and the Father of Lies. There is no truth in him (John 8:44). Our greatest weapon is the faith we have been given in a God who loved us enough to rescue us “while we were still sinners” (Rom. 5:8). Our greatest weapon against the isolation is to confess both our love of God and our genuine longing to a living, breathing, person who can touch us and restore us in love.


Beware! Not everyone loves honesty. Those who have already given up hope will not want their memories stirred, will not want the embers poked. They fear disappointment. I fear disappointment. For some, who have found peace in simple answers, the complexity of a real God who acts in ways we do not understand and cannot explain will be too much. But if ever the Christian community is to rise above the charge of “hypocrite” we must come out of the shadows and honestly state that we are content but not satisfied.


Here, I will start: “Hi. My name is Hudson and I am lonely.”

Now you. ...