A CURE FOR LONELINESS

Recently I watched an episode of Touched By An Angel, a TV show about angels who help people on earth. That particular show inspired me to write about loneliness. The episode was about a lonely, desperate woman named, Zoey. She had recently been dumped by her boyfriend and she was feeling as if she would never find a man who would want to marry her. She longed for a husband and children. She was tired of coming home every night to a lonely apartment.

One night when Zoey was leaving a bar with a man of questionable character, two angels, Monica and Andrew stopped her. Then Monica gave her a message from God. She told Zoey that love isn't something you shop for and she would never find her ideal man in a bar. "To find the right man, you have to become the right woman," Monica said. She was suggesting that
Zoey fill her lonely life with giving love to others. She told her to trust God and wait for His timing to bring the right man into her life.

At the end of the show, Zoey was sitting outside on a beautiful summer day talking to an elderly woman in a wheel chair. She had become a volunteer companion for residents at a rest home. She had taken her angel's advice.

Loneliness is something most of us have to deal with at some time in our lives. But we don't have to be single to be lonely. I believe some of the loneliest women in the world are married. I used to be one of them. I also recall the loneliness of being single, and if I had it to do over, I would fill my loneliness with community service, not smoke-filled bars.

God could make me a widow tomorrow, and I would like to think that if He did, I would handle that emotion in a better way than I have in the past. I would draw even closer to God and I would spend time helping others instead of wallowing in my loneliness.

The best advice I've read about loneliness comes from Elizabeth Elliott: "The answer to our loneliness is love- not our finding someone to love us, but our surrendering to the God who has always loved us with an everlasting love. Loving Him is then expressed in a joyful and full-hearted pouring out of ourselves in love to others. As I find my place of service within the community of God's people, there is little time left to feel lonely. For me the answer to loneliness is not to solve it, but to embrace it as a gift from a loving Father and to offer it back to Him, so that He can transform it into a gift for others."

I would guess that if the story about Zoey had continued, we would have watched as she became so involved in helping others that she forgot about her loneliness. And at that moment when she was no longer desperate and searching for love, but was instead giving love, that was when she became the right woman for the man God was about to bring into her life. He probably just appeared one day when she wasn't searching for him.

The cure for loneliness is love, but not our finding someone to love us, the cure comes when we whole-heartedly pour out love to others by volunteering, helping, visiting, or going wherever we're needed. To find love we have to give love. "To find the right man, become the right woman." I thought that was such wonderful advice!