“Experiencing chronic loneliness can significantly elevate a person’s likelihood of considering suicide due to feelings of isolation,” researchers say.
What is responsible for the increase in loneliness in our society?
“Globalization and increase in technology,” some people say.
When we think of people who are lonely, we tend to think of those who are old, but this is not true. Loneliness is across the board.
If your heart has not been broken by loneliness or you have not experienced a situation when your life is so dark that God seems far away, count your blessings.
Be thankful. Pray that you may be spared from the terrible pain of loneliness.
The cry of loneliness is prevalent in our society. If you stop and listen, you can hear it.
You can hear it from an abandoned child in an orphanage.
You can hear it from a cry of a mother in a nursing home whose children are too busy to have time to write, call or visit her.
You can hear it from a man in a hospital who is dying of cancer.
You can hear it from a woman whose husband has just left her for someone younger, with three boys to raise by herself.
You can hear it from a boy being bullied at school.
You can hear it from a prisoner who moans because of shame and calls for mercy.
You can hear it from houses with manicured lawns in suburban America, occupied by aging homecoming queens with aborted dreams.
The cry of loneliness comes in various forms.
It does not respect age, gender or social status. It comes from the poor and the rich, from single people and married people.
It comes from people who have failed and from people who have succeeded.
But the most gut-wrenching cry of loneliness did not come from an orphanage.
It did not come from a nursing home, a hospital or a prison.
It came from a hill – the hill of Calvary.
It did not come from an orphan, an elderly mother, a prisoner or a divorcee.
It came from Jesus, the Savior of the world.
Jesus was like the scapegoat of old, who was banished to the wilderness to die with the sins of the community dumped on it.
Jesus, the sin-bearer, felt alone at Calvary. Jesus felt so alone when the sins of all humanity, from the beginning of the world to the end of time, were dumped on Jesus.
Jesus felt so alone because only He could do what He did. Only Jesus could die to redeem the world.
Like the scapegoat left alone in the wilderness, Jesus bore the sins of the world. Every lie ever told, every object ever coveted, every promise ever broken were dumped on Jesus’ shoulders.
On the cross, Jesus became sin. (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Sin and God do not mix. The most holy God cannot look at sin.
When the sins of the world were dumped on Jesus, He felt abandoned by the Father.
It was more than Jesus could take. Jesus withstood the tortures and the crucifixion. He withstood the beatings. He withstood the mockery. He withstood having been abandoned by His disciples. He did not retaliate when verbal insults were hurled at Him. He did not resist the nails in his hands and feet.
But when God seemed to turn His face away from Jesus, it was more than what Jesus could handle.
That broke the camel’s back. Jesus felt so alone and lonely.
His heart was broken to pieces and He cried, “My God!”
(Matthew 27:46).
The wail came from Jesus’ parched lips. Jesus’ holy heart was broken.
Like the scapegoat, Jesus, the sin-bearer, screamed as He wandered in the eternal wasteland.
From Jesus’ parched lips came the words screamed by all who walk in the desert of loneliness – “Why? Why do you abandon me?”
The pain caused by the feeling of being abandoned by God can make one cry from one’s own gut.
That was Jesus’ cry on the cross.
If you are struggling with the feeling of loneliness, know that your God has felt infinitely more than what you are felling.
Imagine Jesus’ with bruised hands and with misty eyes, wiping your own tears away. Although Jesus may offer no answer to your pain, although Jesus may not solve your problems, He was once alone and understands your situation.