The Gift of Loneliness: 3 Ways God Uses Our Desert Seasons
One afternoon, in an empty college classroom, a mentor prayed the following words over me: “Thank you, Lord, for giving Sara the gift of loneliness.” She spoke these words as if in blessing, but at the time, it certainly didn’t feel like one. And if loneliness was a gift, I didn’t want it.
It wasn’t until several years later, when I became a mother and a pastor’s wife, that her words of prayer returned to me. I had graduated, leaving behind my close-knit college community. I had gotten married and moved across the country with our infant daughter, leaving behind our family and friends. It was difficult to find new community when life demanded so much of me as a new mom living in a new state. And as someone to whom mothering didn’t come naturally, the transition into this baby stage was like being undone and remade daily. Through all of this, loneliness had come to lay across me like a cold, long shadow and an impenetrable fog.
But the loneliest place by far was church. In our small Korean congregation—where my husband served part-time as the youth pastor—there were no other English-speaking young families. I wasn’t comfortable sitting in the youth service with him, but I felt equally out of place in the concurrent main service, with people who interacted with me coldly and minimally. So each Sunday, I spent the entirety of the service hiding in the car. When it was over, I tentatively entered with our daughter in the Ergo carrier, a shield between me and the awkward social situations of the fellowship hour.
As week after week went by, I felt more and more invisible and disillusioned. Where was the body of Christ for me in this difficult season? It was then I remembered my mentor’s prayer. I began to ask God how this crushing season of loneliness could possibly be a gift. To my surprise, he was swift and sweet in his reply.
That year, through snatches of quiet times, emails with old friends, and God’s presence with me in the day-to-day moments of motherhood, I learned three things about times of loneliness:
1. Loneliness is God-ordained.
Like a field that is left fallow for a season, our times of loneliness are planned and watched over by God for future fruitfulness.[1] In fact, throughout Scripture and in the history of God’s people, numerous seasons of loneliness are evident; think of Moses and David, Jesus and Paul. These seasons are not mistakes. Rather, they often prove to be part of some of the most formative and faith-shaping experiences. Knowing this helps us kindle hope in God’s enduring goodness and faithfulness in our own lives.
2. Loneliness draws us to God.
Over and over again, God says to his people in Scripture, “I am with you.”[2] Though no one else may see us hiding in the parking lot, God does. He knows our hunger for community and is intimately acquainted with our grief.[3] Scripture promises that God “heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3). When we call out to God in our broken-heartedness, our loneliness, and our longing for love, he answers.[4]
3. Loneliness leads to compassion.
God doesn’t just acknowledge our loneliness. He promises to do something beautiful with it.[5] Those of us with desert hearts are promised springs of water welling up from within to water those around us.[6] For it is only when we have experienced what it is like to be lonely that we can begin to see the loneliness in others and learn to embrace them as we have been embraced. As 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 says, we have a “Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”
When I think back on that lonely season of early motherhood, I’m amazed to see how the lessons I learned were often in conjunction with my growing daughter. As she learned about object permanence, I was learning that God was also there even when I felt distant from him. As she was weaned from breastfeeding, I was weaned from solely relying on human community so that I could taste the fellowship of God’s presence more sweetly. And as my daughter learned to walk, God helped me take my first wobbly steps in becoming someone who could lovingly pursue others first, instead of always waiting for them to pursue me.
During the second year of my husband’s ministry, I felt the Holy Spirit’s nudging to start reaching out to some of the young college students, particularly the girls. We began meeting for weekly Bible study and prayer, often over a meal, while my husband took our baby out for a few hours.
In many ways, this precious group of girls became the community I had longed for but not in the ways I had imagined. I had hoped to find a mentor who could come alongside me in this new season of motherhood, but instead, God made me into a mentor who could come alongside younger women. I had imagined a group of fellow moms to journey with, but God gave me students who joyfully and frequently offered to babysit. I had imagined being plugged into a small group with other families, but God gave a community of young adults who loved our family fiercely and generously.
What my mentor had prayed over me in my college days was true: loneliness, when in the hand of God, can indeed be a gift. Sometimes seasons of loneliness stretch on for longer than we would like. Sometimes the ending is different from what we had imagined. But always, the gift is this: under the care of our ever-present Father, loneliness will bloom into promised love.
[1] Rom. 8:28
[2] Gen. 28:15; Isa. 41:10; Jer. 46:28; Matt. 28:20; Acts 18:10
[3] Isa. 53:3
[4] Jer. 33:3
[5] Isa. 41:18
[6] John 7:38
