Loneliness in the Season of Love

Valentine’s Day is on the horizon and I can already feel the heightened sense of loneliness it brings. This will be my third Valentine’s Day without my husband; the third year with no sentimental card or thoughtful gift. He often surprised me with something special on Valentine’s Day but waited until the next day to buy my favorite gift, Godiva Truffles. I wanted him to wait because I’m cheap and prefer things 50% off, and he always used the discount to buy me twice as many because he loved to give good gifts. My Valentine’s Day memories from our 13 years of marriage make me smile but also make me sad. I miss being known so well by my husband.  I miss the comfort of a relationship that is secure enough to wait until the perfect gift goes on sale. 

I tend to blame my loneliness on my husband’s death, thinking that the only reason I am lonely is because he isn’t here. But the hard truth is that I was often lonely before he died. Widowhood didn't cause my loneliness; it exacerbated it. The approach of Valentine’s Day only highlights the loneliness that has always been a part of my life.

I have come to see that there’s a loneliness - an “alone-ness”- inside all of us. There are places in our hearts and minds that no one, not even our spouse, can access. We have experiences that cannot be fully shared with others through words alone because there is a type of knowing that comes through experience and an un-knowing that comes from hearing about an experience second-hand.  

While it’s likely that my story looks very different from yours, I wonder if you too have experienced this thread of loneliness. Loneliness has taken on different forms throughout my adult years, but it has always been there. 

As wonderful as our marriage was, it was often lonely. My husband was my best friend and truly unique in his ability to listen and empathize, but he couldn’t fix my loneliness problem. He was my companion and life partner but he didn’t always understand how I felt or what I needed. We experienced many joys and sorrows together in our 13 years of marriage, but each of us experienced them differently. I couldn't fully understand him and he couldn't fully understand me.

Our journey with his heart issues and eventual heart transplant was also lonely. I watched from the sidelines as peers lived "normal" lives while I spent my days the way that a person 60 years my senior might; at the hospital bedside of a dying spouse. He was the patient and I was the caregiver. Both of us experienced unique sorrows and sufferings that the other person could not understand. I witnessed him endure physical pain and suffering that traumatized me as the observer, but it traumatized him as the one experiencing it. We were on two different paths as we navigated the same journey.

Even when my husband survived and began to recover from his transplant, life was still lonely.  He was back home with me but our lives had radically changed. The new path we were on was hard and we each had to grieve losses and limitations. Again, we watched as others lived the life we thought we would have, but didn't. We faced it as a team; one flesh, united by marriage and in it together no matter what comes. But we were both lonely, often. A spouse cannot fill your soul.

Now, my husband is no longer by my side and widowhood is lonely. Single parenting is lonely.  Watching my widowed friends begin to date or find new love is lonely. Big important days like Christmas are lonely and so are the little moments like bed time, dinner time and mundane packing-for-trips time.  

Maybe you can relate to this ever-present loneliness that changes form but never goes completely away.  The lie I'm tempted to believe is that if my husband was here, the loneliness would go away.  Certainly some of it would, but not all.  Not the deep down loneliness - the "alone-ness" that comes from being human. I'm also tempted to believe that remarriage would fix the loneliness, but how could it when so much of what shaped me has not been experienced by another?

No, loneliness is here to stay. Therefore, my hope cannot be in loneliness disappearing from my life. Hope can only be found in the truth that Jesus joins me in my loneliness.   

Jesus, who was in perfect relationship with his Heavenly Father since before time began, came to earth and lived a lonely life.  He experienced shame, rejection, betrayal and injustice.  He was conceived by an unmarried mother during a time when women in this situation would be ostracized from their community (Luke 1:27). His parents had to flee from his hometown to escape the threat of death and they lived for years as immigrants away from their community.  All the boys born within two years of his birth near his hometown were killed by a jealous and ruthless king (Matthew 2:12-23). As the lone survivor in his age group, I wonder how many families resented him? I wonder how lonely he felt as a child and if the other kids ever wanted to play with him? I wonder what it was like to be fully God and fully man, or to choose holiness every time when others followed their own desires.

The Bible tells us that Jesus was misunderstood, mistreated, and mocked. He was a "man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3). He was single. He was homeless. He was ultimately forsaken by his Heavenly Father at the moment of his greatest suffering and experienced the breaking of their perfect relationship of love (Matthew 27:46).

These truths about Jesus’ life on this earth do not take away my loneliness but they do bring me comfort. My Lord himself lived a lonely life and he did it for me. He did it so that I am not alone even in my loneliness. He did it so that one day I will be free from loneliness forever.

I am going to have to walk through this life with deep longings and aches that won’t be fulfilled.  Such is life in this sin-soaked world. But by grace, I don't have to walk through it alone. Neither do you.

In Christ,

Elise

For further reflection:

How would you describe your loneliness?

What is the one thing that you imagine would take your loneliness away?

How does Jesus living a lonely life comfort you?

How have you experienced Jesus’ presence with you in your loneliness?