Loneliness...

"Like fatigue, like hunger, loneliness is part of being human. Fatigue is cured by sleep and hunger by eating, but how do we handle loneliness? It's our very nature to seek an alter ego, a heart that responds to our human ache for understanding.

Our favorite women of the Bible were no strangers to periods of aloneness, which, interestingly, often presaged important events: Mary, during her pregnancy; Ruth, bereaved in Moab; Esther, in a pagan harem; Hannah, childless for years in a culture where barrenness was a disgrace.

In his crowded adult life, there were times when Jesus chose to be alone, deliberately making himself unavailable so that he might nourish his soul in communion with his Father. He experienced both isolation and alienation. His query to his disciples when the fawning crowds drifted off, "Will you also go away?" and his Gethsemane "Watch with me"--these are lonely words.

Yet even Jesus did not use his relationship with God as a substitute for human companionship. He found sustenance with his three closest disciples--Peter, James and John--and in the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus.

But even the most congenial marriage, the closest friendship, the most satisfying child-parent relationship is both transient and unpredictable. Although some 1,500 years have passed since St. Augustine remarked that "our hearts will never be at rest away from the One who made them," it's still true.

Just because he has created us as unique individuals, our Father knows the best way to fill each one's empty places. It is only God who can fill our deepest longings, who never has an appointment elsewhere, who never replaces us with someone he likes better, who promises never to leave us totally alone. He is the only one who wants to be and always can be the unfailing companion on our journey."

Luke 5:12-16; I Kings 19:1-10; Psalm 27:7-10