NOTHING
COMES CLOSE to helping when we are faced with that lonely contemplation in the
noisiest of lives, with needs voiced and going begging everywhere it seems.
Consciousness of helplessness in the flurry of anxiousness: can there be anything worse? We have nothing to offer ourselves let alone
anyone else.
***
Chasing a sense of
peace – or even a sense of connection,
For, if anything,
all that’s on board now is hellish dereliction,
Hoping my way
through such a soup – painted into a corner,
Perhaps the only advantage here is to become a faithful
mourner.
***
Loneliness can occur to anyone at any time, but it saves
its poignant blows for the one blindsided by a family crisis, loss, betrayal,
unexpected hardship.
We may say to an afflicted one, “Cast all your cares on God, who loves you,”
and then we might truthfully realise that such a cliché is not intended through
love – it’s a quip, that’s all. How are we to turn something about that leaves
us feeling utterly inadequate? Tears help, or do they? Can we control them? Do
the floodgates open up and with gargantuan pressure gushing through be stemmed
by closing them again mechanically. Do we even have the time to invest in our
sadness?
There must be a way we can obtain the therapy we need;
from God.
Receiving the
Love of Our Need
In all such seasons of
mercilessness there is a comfort so paradoxical – so ironical – we scarcely
know it ever existed before. This comfort comes welling up from within, as we
converse and pray and seethe and cuss and sob. Better always to lament with God
than alone; we very well lament with God when we do these things in any event.
God is home in the
lamenter. God is there as we connect even within ourselves. As we peek into the
mirror, God stares back at us, as we know only a part of ourselves in ‘the one’
looking us in the eye. Grace should afford us a pleasant looking face. God is
in us.
When we face the
literal crowded room – unable to gain any empathy – we may draw into ourselves,
and inwardly also upon God. If we are aware God is all around, the mere thought
should soothe.
***
God
is home in us as we contemplate the lonely reality of being disconnected with
people all around. As we connect with the truth of our loneliness, God connects
with us inside. There is no better loneliness than a loneliness with the Lord.
© 2013 S. J. Wickham.
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