L is for LONELY

We watched her from across the room as she sat alone, with only a Cappuccino for company. Her clothes revealed wealth but her blonde hair concealed the years she had lived. An occasional glimpse through the window, interspersed with sips of her warm coffee hid a thousand thoughts, but I guessed she was probably lonely, in a place full of people she didn't know. When a friend eventually arrived, her insistence in paying for her welcome guest, suggested that she was more comfortable in company than alone.

He lay at our front door for two weeks, only stretching his short legs to circumnavigate the house or inspect the trees on the lawn for intruders. His appetite was minimal and his soil-covered nose indicated that most of the dog biscuits I gave him were buried under a bush at the top of the garden. He had been my mother's dog,now inherited by my sister and in her long absence on holiday, he had found the lack of human company to much to bear, so he found some to ease his loneliness. When she returned, he left again as quickly as he had arrived.

I used to ring home from university once a week. And even though I returned for the weekend, my midweek call was always welcomed with a voice full of happiness. Sometimes, circumstances would bring me home during the week or at least earlier than usual and I knew that they were glad to see me and hoped I would stay a little longer. After I got married, I still visited mum and dad most days, sometimes only for a short while, but I soon found out that precious time can never be counted in hours and minutes and that short section that I managed to find in any day was an oasis in their increasingly lonely lives.

I know, because now I see things from the other side and while our lives are busy with work, church, friends and each other, I can never deny that sense of loneliness that comes when the family leave home. The long winter evenings, the tidy house, the silent piano, the full fridge and the quietness. Yes, the quietness is the hardest part.

Yet loneliness is not an exclusive club. It is a worldwide illness, from the destitute orphans and homeless of our overpopulated cities and disease-ridden countries right down to people like us who, in our solitary moments, send out a text on our mobile phones in the hope that someone will answer. I have felt that isolation, those moments when you are totally alone with your thoughts and little else. That first day in a new class or in a new job, sitting alone in a cafe or restaurant, walking in the fields, closing the door for the first time in your new flat, driving alone late at night, pensive in a celebrating crowd.

Jesus understands our loneliness, even though the word is never used but his promise in Matthew's gospel of, 'I am with you always, even unto the end of the world,' assures me that I am never alone. He also tells me, ' I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever.' And His Spirit is with me now as I write this on my own. It's good to always have friends in such high places.